New Vegas: Sheason's Story
by Sheason
Summary: Is it fanfiction? Is it a novelization? Is it just the disconnected and incoherent ramblings of a man who has finally taken leave of his senses? Yes. This is my attempt at telling a story of New Vegas, but with my own twist, with my character Sheason as The Courier. It's not really "the" story of New Vegas, but it uses the game's plot extensively. Updates when its finished.
1. Prologue

**New Vegas**

**Prologue**

War. War never changes.

The end of the world occurred much as we had predicted. In the 21st century, war was waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: petroleum and uranium. The details are trivial and pointless; the reasons, as always, purely human ones.

In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders, and the Earth was nearly wiped clean of human life. A great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies. Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the earth.

A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years.

But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter in human history. For while man had succeeded in destroying the old world, the spark of humanity is stubborn, and not so easily snuffed out,

In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters, known as vaults. When the doors opened, their inhabitants had only the hell of the wastes to greet them. They set out across the ruins of the old world to build new societies, establishing villages, and forming tribes.

As the decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to old world values of democracy, and the rule of law. As the Republic grew, so did its needs. Scouts spread east, seeking territory and wealth, in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city – New Vegas – untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, and a great wall spanning the Colorado River. The NCR mobilized its army and sent it east to occupy the Hoover Dam, and restore it to working condition.

But across the Colorado, another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged in the conquest of 86 tribes: Caesar's Legion.

Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam – just barely – against the Legion's onslaught. The Legion did not retreat. Across the river, the Legion gathers strength… campfires burn, training drums beat, and it is only a matter of time before they cross the Colorado again.

Through it all, the New Vegas Strip has remained open for business under the control of its mysterious owner, the enigmatic Mr. House, and his army of rehabilitated tribals, and police robots.

An unsuspecting courier, hired by the Mojave Express, is carrying an inconspicuous package to the New Vegas Strip. What seemed like a simple delivery job, however, has taken a turn for the worse…

The arrival of the courier, and the package he carries, will change the Mojave forever…

But war?

War never changes.


	2. Chapter 1: Welcome to Goodsprings

**Chapter 1: Welcome to Goodsprings.**

I woke up to the sound of helicopter blades. At least, that's what I thought it was at first. Everything was so hazy and unfocused. I tried opening my eyes, but the light was blinding. I blinked away the haze, and my eyes eventually adjusted to the light. The world slowly shifted into focus, and I saw the spinning fan above me. I was on my back, on a bed, inside a house somewhere.

How did I get here? What happened? And why does my head hurt?

"You're awake. How about that," said a voice to my left. I rolled over and tried to get up to get a better look at who was talking, but the room started spinning again. Waves of nausea washed over me, and I resisted the urge to vomit. I held my head to keep it from throbbing, and to keep me from collapsing back on the bed right there. I was seeing double, and couldn't really make out who was speaking.

"Whoa, easy there. Easy," the blurry figure said again, reaching out a hand to steady me. I coughed and tried to power through the fog clouding my head. Finally he came into focus enough for me to see him. He was an older man, with a white moustache, bald head, overalls, and black gloves. I didn't recognize him.

"You've been out cold a couple of days now. Just relax a second, get your bearings."

"Wh… where am I?" I finally managed to squeeze through the fog. "Who are you?"

"I'm Doc Mitchell," he said proudly. "Welcome to Goodsprings."

Goodsprings. For some reason, that triggered a memory in my head. But it was all scrambled and out of order, like there were only bits and pieces left. A sign on the side of the road pointing to Goodsprings. A man in a checkered suit. My hands being bound. Getting hit over and over again. Someone digging a shallow grave. A water tower. Something about my latest delivery. A gun… one that was pointed straight at my head. Followed by a gunshot.

I'd been shot in the head.

How the hell was I still alive?

"Well now," Doc Mitchell said. "I gave you my name. Mind giving me yours?"

I blinked, confused. "What?"

"Your name. I didn't really get the chance to ask you while I was patchin' up the holes in your head, on account of you bein' unconscious and all. Figured now's a good a time as any to ask who I've been stitching up."

I sat up on the bed, trying to fully take stock of my surroundings. I was in a house, but it must've been a makeshift hospital, since there were medical supplies everywhere. "It's Fisher. Sheason Fisher." Doc Mitchell shrugged.

"Well, I can't say it's what I would've picked for you, but if that's your name, that's your name." He got up and headed towards a nearby desk. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He came back, with a mirror in his hand. "Now, I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rootin' around in your noggin to pull all the bits of lead out. Now, I'm no plastic surgeon, but I pride myself on my needlework – how'd I do?" And he handed me the mirror.

I took a good hard look at my own face. My brown hair fell down in a matted mess, and my beard had grown out considerably without having shaved in a few days. But when I saw the scars, my blue eyes widened as I realized I'd been shot in the head not once, but twice. There was one nasty scar going from the right side of my mouth almost to my ear that wasn't there before, and another scar that still had a few stitches at the top of my left temple. The motherfucker shot me in the head twice. I couldn't help but touch the bullet-made Glasgow smile on my right cheek.

"Right now, I'm just glad I'm not dead," I said honestly. Doc Mitchell chuckled.

"Well, I reckon most people would be glad about that in your condition. Can you stand?" I nodded, getting up, and hoping I could get off the bed without falling flat on my face. I was a little wobbly at first, but the world was getting clearer by the minute, so I had no trouble.

"That's good. You're doin' a lot better than I thought you would be for someone who'd been shot in the head," he said proudly. "Now, if you don't mind, there are a few questions I want to ask you."

"Sure, but Doc?" I asked, looking down and realizing I was only wearing a pair of underpants. "You mind if I get dressed first? I'd rather not be talkin' to another man if I'm only in my skivvies, if you know what I mean."

He nodded. "Sorry about that. I put all your possessions in the footlocker at the base of the bed when you were brought in here. Just come on into the other room when you're ready to see me."

A minute later, I'd finished putting on my clothes – a cotton shirt, a leather jacket, my gloves, jeans, and leather boots - and was looking through the bag that held the rest of my things. The first thing I checked was Roscoe. Roscoe was a 9mm pistol that I kept on me at all times. It was simple, yet elegant, and brutal in its execution. I called it Roscoe because that was the name etched into the pistol's grip. It was probably the name of whoever owned it before, but I didn't really care; that pistol had served me well over the years, working when other guns would've up and died. I must've been ambushed; that's the only reason I can think as to why I didn't shoot them (whoever they were) with Roscoe first.

I went through the rest of my possessions, after checking to make sure Roscoe was clean and undamaged. 150 bottlecaps. My binoculars. My canteen. 52 bullets for Roscoe spread between four magazines. The delivery order from the Mojave Express… and that was it.

Where was the platinum chip?

That was the whole reason I was heading to New Vegas in the first place – I was delivering a novelty platinum chip to some important suit in Vegas. And then I remembered. The man in the checkered suit – before he shot me, he held the platinum chip in front of my face, gloating.

Even though the world was clearer, my mind was still a little fuzzy, and I couldn't concentrate. That was when I realized just how immensely hungry I was. I must not have eaten in days…

* * *

"Thanks for the food," I said, finishing off the bowl of lukewarm soup Mitchell had pulled out of his fridge. I'll be honest, it wasn't all that appetizing – and tasted suspiciously of squirrel – but it was food, and you didn't survive out in the wasteland long if you were a picky eater.

"You're still my patient, so it's no problem," he said with a grin, sitting across from me at the table. "And you were pretty tolerant of my psych evaluation to make sure all your dogs were barkin'. Though, now we've got a minute, think you're up to tellin' me what got you put in my care in the first place?"

I wiped the food from my mouth, and shot him a questioning glance. "What, you don't know?" He shook his head.

"Nope. Like I said, I didn't even know your name. All I knew was that metal fella, Victor, he carried you right to my doorstep a few days ago, asking me to fix you up. Even gave me more'n enough caps to cover everything, too." He paused. "So, you're tellin' me that you don't know what got you shot in the head?" I shook my head.

"Not really… well… kind of. Things are still a bit fuzzy 'round the edges," I said honestly. And then something he'd just said sunk in. "Wait, Victor? Who's Victor?"

"The robot, Victor. You know, the one with the TV for a face?" he said. I still had no idea what he was talking about. He shrugged. "Ah well. Anyway, come with me. I'll see you out." He got up from the table, and I followed. As soon as we got to the door, he snapped his fingers.

"Hang on, I almost forgot something," he said, disappearing into the other room, returning almost immediately. "If you're headin' back out there, you ought to have this." And with that, he handed me what was unmistakably…

"A Pip Boy?" I asked, incredulously. He nodded. I turned the machine over in my hands, getting a good look at one for the first time. I've seen a lot in my travels, but I'd never actually owned a Pip Boy, or even seen one up close before. It was a personal computer, designed to be worn on the left arm like a glove or a sleeve, except it was made of a dull greenish-grey metal. The most prominent feature was the screen, which took up most of the visible space, and beneath it were three buttons, labeled "STATS," "ITEMS," and "DATA" in big bold letters. To the left of the screen was a dial, a knob, and near the top was what looked like a Geiger counter. Underneath the screen and out of the way were the two latches that opened and closed the device, so you could put it on and it wouldn't simply slide off your arm when it locked. "Where'd you get it?"

"I grew up in one of them Vaults they made before the war. We all got a Pip Boy. Ain't much use to me now, but you might want such a thing, after what you been through," he paused, looking down. "I know what it's like, having something taken from you…" he said wistfully. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to make him so melancholy as I unlocked the Pip Boy.

He shook it off, and looked back at the forearm mounted computer. "Just be careful with that thing though – once you put it on, the biometric seals or some such'll latch on to you. You'll be the only one who can take it off again. I remember hearin' a story about a guy who died in the middle of the night – they had to saw his arm off to remove the thing. Don't know if'n that's true or not, but better safe than sorry." I nodded, wondering just how useful something like that would be. There was an odd hum, and a strange tingling sensation shot up my arm as soon as it closed and locked tight.

"Thanks again for patching me up, Doc," I said, shaking his hand. He waved it off.

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for. And remember, you ever get hurt out there, you come right back and I'll fix you up. Just… try not to get yourself killed anymore, alright?" he added with a smirk. I couldn't help but laugh as well.

"Thanks. I'll see you around, Doc."

And with that, I opened the door to the Mojave wasteland.

* * *

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the harsh desert sun, and I finally got a good look at the town. Goodsprings was such a small town that I'd never been here on a job before. By the looks of the buildings, the town must have existed long before the war that destroyed the world. Based on the time (close to 9 am) and where the sun was, Doc Mitchell's house was on the west side of town, up a small hill. There was a flagpole next to his door, with a blue flag that said "Battle Born," "Nevada," and "Southwest Commonwealth" on it.

I started walking down the hill towards the cracked and broken street when I became aware of an odd squeaking sound, like a greased axle grinding against metal. Rolling towards me on a single large wheel was a blue, vaguely v-shaped boxy robot with arms that looked like thick pipes with claws on the end, and television in the middle of its… well, body. Projected on the screen was the face of a cowboy with a big cowboy hat, a handkerchief around his neck, and a cigarette hanging out of his smiling mouth.

"Howdy, pardner!" it said. The robot spoke through a speaker above the TV, and the artificial voice was colored by an odd accent I couldn't place. "Might I say, you're lookin' fit as a fiddle." The face didn't move as the robot talked, but the image occasionally flickered in and out of focus.

"Let me guess," I said to the robot, a little unsure where to look (I didn't see a camera, or eyes, or anything like that – should I just look at the face on the TV?). "You must be Victor, right?"

"That I am, pardner," the robot replied. "Pleased to meet you all proper like."

"Doc Mitchell told me what you did. Thanks for saving me." I started to raise a hand out of habit, before I realized that I couldn't actually shake hands with a claw.

"Don't mention it!" Victor waved one of his claw-hands. "I'm always ready to lend a helping hand to a stranger in need."

"Yeah, well… thanks all the same. The name's Sheason Fisher."

"I know who you are," Victor said, unmoving. "Don't you worry none about that."

Before I could ask how he knew my name, a more important question leapt into my head. "Say, how did you find me, anyway?" I desperately needed to start piecing together exactly what had happened, and this robot was probably going to be my best lead.

"I was out for a stroll that night when I heard the commotion up at the old bone orchard." He turned on his wheel, pointing a claw at a hill to the north. There was the water tower I remembered. "Saw what looked like a bunch of bad eggs, so I laid low." He turned back to face me, his screen flickering again slightly. "Once they'd run off, I dug you up to see if you were still kickin'. Turns out, you were, so I hauled you off to the Doc right quick." For some reason that reminded me of a question I'd forgotten to ask Mitchell.

"You know how long the Doc was patching me up?"

"It's been…" the robot trailed off. "Hang on, what's the date?" I was at a loss for words. I'd never known a robot to forget what day it was. As far as I knew, they all had internal clocks to measure things like that – not that I usually got the chance to ask, mind.

I checked the Pip Boy's clock: October 19, 2281.

"Well then, you've been in there about 7 or 8 days, I reckon." Victor replied matter-of-factly after I told him the date.

"Do you know who ambushed me?" I'd been dead for a week. It was time to start finding out who was responsible – and pay them back with interest.

"Hmm…" Victor said, tapping his right claw against the bottom of his TV screen with an audible clicking sound. "Can't say that I'm familiar with the rascals. Some of the fine folks in town might be able to help you out with that."

Damn.

"Well, thanks anyway," I said to the robot. I needed to get up to the graveyard and see if there were any clues as to who shot me. I know the robot told me to ask around town, but personally I'd like to find whatever I could with my own eyes before I started asking any of the local yahoos.

"Happy trails!" Victor said cheerfully, turning on his wheel and rolling on down the street. There was something off about that robot. Granted, he was by no means the weirdest thing I'd seen on my travels across the wasteland… but there was something about him… it, I thought, correcting myself… that was just not quite right.

I put the robot out of my mind, trying to focus and put the pieces of that night back together in my head. My mind was no longer fuzzy like it was when I woke up less than an hour ago. So I made my way through the town and up the hill to the cemetery, trying to remember…

* * *

"You got what'cha were after. Pay up." The voice cut through the darkness, cold and angry. I opened my eyes to see both my hands bound in front of me. I shook off the dizziness, and felt something cold and wet slide down my face. A few droplets of blood fell onto my gloves.

"You're cryin' in the rain, pally," said a different voice. I struggled with the ropes, but it didn't work. I couldn't break free.

"Heh," there was a third voice. "Guess who's wakin' up over here." I looked up and saw three men in front of me. The one in the center wore a black and white checkered jacket, with slicked back, greasy black hair. Two guys in black leather vests and white headbands flanked him on either side. Based on their clothing, those two must be members of the Great Khans – a gang that roamed the Mojave wasteland. The one on the left was black with an enormous moustache, and the one on the right was white and had red hair in a spiky Mohawk. The white guy carried a shovel.

The suit took one last draw from his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and putting it out with his shoe. "Time to cash out," he said, walking towards me.

"Would you get it over with?" the black guy said, looking annoyed. The suit held up a finger to silence him.

"Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' em in the face. But I ain't a fink. Dig?" The black guy shook his head, looking to his friend with the Mohawk, who just shrugged. The suit reached into his jacket, pulling out a poker chip. But not just any poker chip – he was holding the platinum chip that I had been hired to deliver to New Vegas.

"You've made your last delivery, kid," he said with a smirk. He put the chip back into his jacket. "Sorry you got twisted up in this scene." With that, he pulled out a pistol – it was a 9mm, like Roscoe, but it had an ivory grip and nickel-plated engraving on the slide and frame, making it look more like a piece of art than a weapon.

"If you're gonna shoot me," I spat blood at his feet, "get it over with, you greasy fuck." He just smiled at me again, and the black guy looked off in another direction, apparently uncomfortable with the whole situation. The suit wasn't done talking yet, though.

"From where you're kneeling, it must seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck…" I heard a click as he thumbed back the hammer, pointing the gun at my face. "Truth is… the game was rigged from the start."

Bang.

Darkness.

* * *

I stood at the edge of my grave.

It wasn't marked, but it must have been mine; it was the only grave in the Goodsprings cemetery that was disturbed. I must've just stared at it for a good fifteen minutes, while my mind replayed the events that landed me here over and over again… now that I could remember it properly.

The grave was barely a foot and a half deep.

There wasn't any wind. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me, but for some reason the graveyard felt unnaturally still and quiet. Off in the distance to the northeast, I could see the faint silhouette of the New Vegas skyline. Above me was the rusted water tower, looming over everything like a giant headstone for the entire graveyard.

I moved away, cursing under my breath. There wasn't anything here. Nothing I could use, anyway.

I needed a drink.

* * *

The radio was the only real sound I heard when I opened the door to the local bar. It was full of static, and playing some pre-war tune. There were only two people inside – a man at the end of the bar, nursing a glass filled with some kind of hooch, and a female bartender who was cleaning a glass. She looked up as I stepped into the bar.

"Well, you've been causin' quite a stir," she said, brushing her short dark hair out of her face as I took a seat at the bar. She wore a faded floral dress with a white apron, but her top was covered by a beige cardigan. "Glad I finally got to meet you. The name's Trudy – welcome to the Prospector Saloon. What can I get you?"

I shrugged. "What've you got?" She put the glass down, reached under the bar, and pulled out a bottle that was simply labeled "whisky," setting it on the bar with an audible thump.

"What do you think?"

"Yeah, I'll have some of that." As she opened the bottle with a pop and started pouring it in the glass she'd been cleaning, I decided to make good on Victor's suggestion. "So, if you've heard of me, then you know what happened."

"A bit, yeah. I'd heard you were hurt bad, and the Doc was fixin' you up. But it weren't none of my business, so I didn't ask."

"Fair enough. Still, maybe you can help me," I took a gulp of the whisky and continued. "I'm trying to track down the men who attacked me. There are three that I know of – a man in a checkered suit, and two Great Khans. Sound familiar?" Trudy nodded.

"Yeah, but I don't know much – except that they were a load of freeloaders who expected a few rounds on the house." She scoffed. "I was able to… convince them to pay up, though. Of course, one of those damn Khans knocked my radio to the floor 'by accident'," Trudy made finger-quotes in the air, "and it hasn't worked right since." At that moment, the radio belched out some more static. She gave it a good thump, and the radio started playing music again. There was still a fair bit of static interference, though.

"Did they say where they were going?" I gulped down a bit more whiskey.

"They were havin' some kind of argument about that, actually. The guy in the checkered coat kept shushin' 'em. It sounded like they came in from the north, through Quarry Junction. If that's the case, I can't say I blame 'em for not wanting to go back." The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and a sinking feeling started to form in my gut.

"You know, before I was attacked, I was planning on heading to Vegas up I-15 through Quarry Junction."

"If that was your plan, you're either brave or stupid." She paused. "No offense. From what I hear, that whole area's infested with the sort of critters that only get mad if you shoot at 'em. I ain't never seen one myself, but hear tell they're these big, vicious beasts, twice the size of a man, with claws that'd rip through metal like paper. Merchants have been avoidin' that stretch of the I-15 like its radioactive now – and hell, it could very well be, for all I know."

I downed the rest of my drink, motioning for a refill. There was only one thing in the wasteland that fit that kind of description: Deathclaws. I can fully believe that she'd never seen one before. If she had, then she'd know that the only real description of those monsters was "walking murder machines." I doubted that even my Corvega would've been able to survive if a Deathclaw was after me. This infestation must've been new, since the last I'd heard, the I-15 up to Vegas was clear of everything except geckos and fiends.

"So, where were they headed?" I finally asked between gulps.

"I didn't hear exactly, but the leader was talkin' about the Strip. Fella wants to get there and avoid the 15, he'd have to go east. Take Highway 95 up." I thought about that route in my head. It was a roundabout way to get to Vegas, and it was a longshot, but if I followed their footsteps, I might just be able to catch up to the bastards who'd tried to put me in the ground. I finished off my drink, and dropped the bottlecaps I owed on the bar. I thanked her for the drink, and made for the door, but before I left, I turned to ask her one more question.

"By the way – how far away is Jean?" She looked confused.

"That broken airfield on the side of the 15?" I nodded. She thought for a moment. "It's… 'bout 6 or 7 miles. Just follow the main road out of town, headin' south east."

"Thanks," I nodded, leaving the bar.

* * *

The road out of town was long, straight, and quiet. I wasn't really trying to rush myself – especially in the growing heat – so, it took me about two hours to walk the road. And that whole time, the only thing going through my head was repeat after repeat of the moment I'd been shot. When I'd first woken up a few hours ago, it was killing me that I couldn't remember what happened; now that I could remember it with such vivid detail, all I wanted was to think about anything else.

This is good, I finally decided. Let yourself remember. Make sure every single detail was etched and burned into your brain. Every single drop of blood. Every strike. All the pain. All the burning, seething hatred. Remember the face of the man who shot you – the man in the checkered coat. Remember everything, and use it to fuel your vengeance. And don't let anything get in your way.

The road finally ended, dumping me onto the cracked and broken remains of I-15. I saw the sign that pointed to Goodsprings – one of the first things I'd remembered clearly when I woke up. There was something here that belonged to me, and I just had to find it. I walked along the road, looking for anything out of place. And after fifteen minutes of walking, I found it.

In the middle of the road was a decently sized, blackened crater. It looked new, not weathered by the elements like the craters left by the war. And in that moment, I realized: this must've been how they'd ambushed me. They'd put explosives on the road, probably disguised like a rock or some other kind of detritus.

I looked around feverishly, knowing that it had to be here somewhere. When I saw it, my eyes must've lit up like a fiend opening up a box of chems. My baby was still here.

On the side of the road, with a flat tire and one side smashed up against a nearby rock formation was my Corvega. On the outside, it looked like any one of the many broken and rusted cars that littered the roads everywhere. But unlike those cars, this one actually had an engine and innards that worked, all four doors, a rollcage on the inside, and even a windscreen that was mostly intact (there were a few cracks, but amazingly the crash hadn't added any new ones).

I'd picked it up for a small fortune a few years ago in New Reno, but it was worth it. You see, I made my living by being a courier. And the best way to be a courier was if you had the means and ability to deliver packages to far off and far flung places in the wasteland quickly– and the best way to do that was with a set of wheels.

I checked the car from top to bottom, to see exactly what was wrong. There was the flat tire, obviously, but that wasn't a big deal; I had a spare in the trunk. I gave the underside a quick once over, and was pleased to see the metal plates on the bottom had held. That meant the really important bits (like the transmission, the gearbox, and the differential) were all still intact. The only thing that really made me cringe wasn't a mechanical problem. It was the steering wheel, still stained with dried blood from when my face must've hit it in the crash.

All in all, the damage wasn't too bad. But then I tried to start it up, just to make sure that it would.

And it wouldn't.

I was out of fuel.

I could tell – I don't know how – that someone, somewhere, at this very moment was having a tremendous laugh at my misfortune. I jokingly vowed then and there to find that person eventually and punch him really hard in the middle of his face.

* * *

I walked back into Goodsprings in decent spirits. There was surprisingly little wrong with my car, despite having been forced off the road by explosives. With the exception of a few loose connections I'd discovered when I checked under the hood, the only major thing wrong was a lack of fuel, and that was easy enough to fix. The car had been modified to run on microfusion cells – batteries that most people in the wasteland only used to power energy weapons. With any luck, Chet, the guy who ran the general store, would have some that I could barter for. If not, I could always find a generator and… borrow some power to charge them up. I wouldn't need much – just enough to get me to the New California Republic outpost on the I-15 just south of Primm. I could get more supplies there.

I opened up my canteen and lifted it up to my mouth to take a drink… only to find that it was empty too. I shrugged, and instead of going to the general store, I went back into the Prospector Saloon next door. The car hadn't gone anywhere in a week, I could take the time to get another drink.

"I'm done bein' nice!" I heard a voice yell when I opened the door to the saloon. The man yelling was a black man wearing a blue cotton shirt, grey striped trousers and what looked like black Kevlar body armor with "NCRCF" stenciled in white paint on the back. He was pointing an accusatory finger at Trudy, who stood her ground and looked annoyed. "If you don't hand over Ringo soon, I'm gonna get my friends, and we're gonna burn this shitstain of a town down to the fuckin' ground. Got it?"

"We'll keep that in mind," she spat back at him, not budging an inch. "Now, if you're not gonna buy something, GET OUT." For a second I thought she was going to hit him, but instead she just pointed past his head at the door. The black man snorted, and turned on his heels. He violently knocked his shoulder into me on his way out, in a weak attempt at looking tough. Trudy sighed, and walked back behind the bar, finally noticing me. "Hey there. Didn't expect to see you here again, an' certainly not so soon. What can I get'cha?"

Don't do it, I thought to myself. Don't you dare do it.

"My canteen's empty," I replied, sitting down. "Thought I'd get one last drink for the road." She nodded and reached under the bar.

Don't do it, I kept thinking to myself. This isn't your fight. Don't do it. But then, despite it all, I heard the words escape my lips:

"So, I overheard you arguing with that guy. What was that all about?"

Damnit!

"Just some unpleasantness," she sighed, pouring me another glass of whisky. "Our little town has gotten itself dragged into something we don't want nothin' to do with. About a week ago – a little before you showed up at Doc's place – this trader, Ringo, comes into town. Survivor of an attack, he says. There's some bad men after him, he says, and he needs a place to hide. I figured he was just in shock. So I gave him a place to lie low. Didn't think anyone'd actually come after him."

"The guy who just left – he was one of the guys after Ringo?"

"Joe Cobb," Trudy scoffed. "He talks big, but he's just a spineless two bit-thug like the rest of those Powder Ganger hoodlums."

"Powder Gangers?" I'd never heard of them before.

"Chain gangs, really," she said with a shrug. "The NCR brought them in from California to work on the rail lines. Turns out giving a bunch of convicts a whole heap of dynamite and blasting powder isn't the best idea. Was a big escape not too long ago. Some of 'em stuck together so they could make trouble. That's what we're dealin' with now."

"So… where is Ringo now?" I asked, mentally kicking myself for continuing. This wasn't my business, especially since I had much more pressing concerns at the moment.

"He's holed up at the abandoned gas station up the hill," she said. I thought about that for a minute, and something about that didn't make sense.

"You know, the town isn't that big. Why hasn't Cobb found Ringo yet?"

"Probably because he ain't lookin' too hard. I think he's afraid Ringo'll ambush him. Like I said, spineless." She gave a soft, nervous chuckle. "Problem is, even if Cobb goes down, his friends'll likely try and roll in and set fire to the place, just out of spite."

"So what are you gonna do?" I asked. She shrugged.

"Some of the others, like Sunny, they'll probably stand up for Ringo if he asks for help. Which he hasn't. Personally, I hope he sneaks out of town one night and takes the Powder Gangers with him. We got enough problems with geckos and radscorpions without having to deal with someone else's bullshit getting dropped on our porch."

I thought about what she said for a minute, finally finishing off my drink. Even if Ringo were to leave town, from the way Cobb was threatening Trudy, I could just tell… the Powder Gangers had no intention of leaving. Not without blood first. I knew the kind of people that got thrown into NCR prisons; they were bad people, like raiders and slavers. They were the kind that would try and take anything if it looked like an easy target. Of course, if that supposedly easy target turned out to have teeth…

Against my better judgment, a plan was forming in my head. Something that might be able to get Goodspings out of danger, drive off the Powder Gangers, and (if I were to play my cards right) make myself a tidy profit of caps for the road.

I latched onto the idea of money, and tried to convince myself that was my sole motivation, despite the hogwash I knew it was. That, and I promised myself that I'd try to help… but no matter what, I'd be out of Goodsprings come sunset.

* * *

The abandoned gas station, like almost every other pre war building, was dilapidated, boarded up, and covered in peeling paint and rust. There weren't any gas pumps – just a couple of frames where it looked like the pumps had been ripped right out of the ground. The building itself was essentially just a box with a door, boarded up windows, and an attached garage with a broken pickup truck sitting on cinderblocks inside. Beside the door was a Sunset Sarsaparilla vending machine. Next to the building was a bent sign, with a "Poseidon Energy" logo on top. Below it was another sign, broken in places, but the intent was still clearly visible:

**REGULAR**

$7450.99/gal

**PREMIUM**

$8500.99/gal

I made my way carefully to the door. The windows may have been boarded up, but close up I could tell that there were enough gaps for anyone inside to look out, and aim a weapon through. With deliberate slowness, I pushed the door open. The rusted hinges squeaked unbearably, until the door was stopped by the back wall with a thud.

The unmistakable click of a pistol's hammer being cocked back echoed like cannon fire from inside the glorified shack.

"That's close enough," Ringo came out from behind a pair of boxes, his pistol drawn. He was wearing a dark brown plaid shirt, a pair of denim overalls, with a faded red handkerchief and a pair of goggles tied around his neck. Slung across his body was a satchel, bearing the unmistakable two-headed bear logo of the New California Republic. He looked like he couldn't be more than twenty. "Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"I'm not an enemy, if that's what you're asking," I told him, raising my hands in the air in an effort to calm him down. I could tell in his eyes, and by the way his gun hand was shaking, he wasn't a killer. Not really. But it was probably a good idea to play it safe.

"Yeah? Then why are you here?"

"I talked to Trudy. She told me about the trouble you've been having with Joe Cobb. Thought I might be able to help," He still looked at me with distrust. "But I'm not gonna be able to help if you keep pointing that gun at me." He thought about that for a moment, and finally relented, un-cocking the pistol and setting it down on the counter.

"Alright. Sorry… you just caught me off guard, is all." He leaned against the back wall, and put his hands in his pockets. "Let's start over. My name's Ringo."

"Sheason," I said, letting my hands fall to my sides as I stepped further inside the gas station. "Why don't we start from the beginning: do you know why Joe Cobb and the Powder Gangers are after you?" He shrugged.

"Last week my caravan was on the return trip from California and heading back up to the Crimson Caravan company branch in New Vegas when we got jumped," he said. "Not even a 'drop your weapons and hands up!' before the bullets started flying. I'd like to think we put up a good fight, but there were too many of 'em. I took a few of the bandits down, but by the time I cut and run I was the only one of my caravan left alive. Best I can figure, they're either out for revenge, or they just wanna finish the job."

"So, have you thought about what you're gonna do?" I asked, almost dreading the answer. He didn't really strike me as the planning type.

"What can I do, except lay low for as long as I can, and hope that the town doesn't throw me to the wolves? I could probably deal with Cobb if he actually started looking for me, but I got no chance against his friends on my own."

"You know what you need? You need a hired gun," I said, simply. "Someone who can help you send those jokers packin'. And, as it just so happens, I'm available and could use the money." He looked a little worried at the mention of money.

"I can't pay much. All I've got left are a handful of caps…" A spark crept in his eyes and I could tell he'd just had an idea. "Listen, I'll pay you what I can right now, but if you get me out of this I'll make sure the Crimson Caravan pays you back. You have my word."

"It'll have to do," I said, shrugging.

"Thanks… so what do we do now?"

"You are going to continue doing what you've been doing. Stay put. I'm gonna ask around town, see if I can get some more people on board to help." I started to walk out the door. Before I left, he called after me.

"You really think anyone is actually going to help?"

"Yeah," I said, turning back to him. "Yeah, I do."

* * *

"Say no more. I'm in."

Sunny Smiles was the name of the local 'ranger' living in Goodsprings. If Trudy was the town mom, then Sunny was the family bulldog. You wouldn't think it to look at her – short, young, freckles on her face, light brown hair pulled back, and an almost constant grin. But I'd asked around, and the general consensus was that if I wanted to get some help and organize a defense against the Powder Gangers, I needed to talk to the best shot in town: Sunny Smiles.

"Really?" I asked. "Just like that?" I figured that I'd need to convince her. I didn't expect her to almost cut me off before I'd made my pitch.

"Just like that," she said, sitting smugly on a chair inside the saloon. Sitting next to her was Sunny's dog, Cheyenne. Sunny was scratching her dog behind the ear while she was talking with me. "I got this feeling I'm gonna end up fighting those guys one way or another. Might as well get it over with."

"How can you be sure?"

"Joe Cobb talks about leaving us alone if we hand over Ringo, but I know his type. He and his friends will come after Goodsprings eventually."

I decided right then and there that I liked this kid with the varmint rifle strapped to her back. She had good instincts.

"Of course," she continued, "you, me, an' Ringo ain't exactly a force to be reckoned with." That much was true. Ringo looked like he was still unsure as to what part of a gun was the business end, I was still technically recovering from being shot in the head, and even if people said Sunny was the best shot in town, she still looked like she must have been 17 or 18.

"You know anyone else in town who might be willing to help us drive the Powder Gangers back?" I asked. She grinned.

"Yeah, I know a few…"

* * *

I spent a good hour and a half going all around town, trying to rally the townsfolk. I'd convinced Trudy by telling her my plan – gather anyone who was willing to fight and who had a gun in front of the saloon, set up some cover and a few barricades, and then draw out the Powder Gangers. The only direction they could come at us was from the southeast, where there was no cover to speak of. Joe Cobb and his friends would walk right into a killzone.

Easy Pete, the old man who'd spent all day sitting on the saloon's porch in a rocking chair, parted with his dynamite quickly enough. I just had to convince him that I knew how to use it. After a bit of arguing, Chet eventually promised to hand out as much armor and ammo as he could from the general store's back room to anyone who needed it. Even Doc Mitchell promised to help – he couldn't actually fight, because of his dodgy knee; then again, I didn't expect him to pick up a gun and shoot anybody. But he did part with some Med-X and a few stimpacks, just in case anybody ended up with a few extra holes.

While I was going around town, trying to get whoever I could to help, I always saw Joe Cobb out of the corner of my eye. I could just tell by the way he was watching me… he knew what was coming. When I left Doc Mitchell's place, I didn't see Cobb anywhere. And that, I knew, was trouble. The sun was starting to set. I needed to end this, so I made my way back to the gas station.

On my way there, however, I heard a familiar squeaking sound, and turned around to see Victor rolling up the street just behind me.

"Well howdy-do, friend!" the robot said, rolling to a halt in front of me. "Didn't think you'd still be in town."

"Neither did I," I muttered under my breath. And then a thought crossed my mind. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try, at least. "Hey, Victor? Are you decent in a fight?"

"Well shucks," the robot replied. "I'd like to think I'm fair handy with a six-gun. Why?"

"A gang is gonna try and attack the town soon, and we could use the extra firepower." Victor wobbled a bit on his wheel, and his screen flickered. He lifted a claw arm, and the light caught something on the inside of the claw I hadn't seen before: a focusing crystal diode cluster. Victor was armed – quite literally – with laser weapons.

"Trouble with rustlers, eh pardner? Count me in. Those varmints'll be running home with their tails between their legs by day's end."

* * *

"So, what's going on? Did Sunny agree to help us?" Ringo asked as soon as I stepped back into the gas station.

"Sunny's with us. So is a lot of the town."

"Really?" He started to sound hopeful. "We might actually stand a chance after-"

"Sheason!" I heard a voice yell from behind me. I turned around, and saw Sunny come running up the hill towards the gas station. She already had her rifle drawn. "Ringo! Time to look alive, the Powder Gangers are here to play!" Ringo looked a little worried; I checked Roscoe to make sure he was loaded.

"How many are there?"

"At least six, Joe Cobb included. They look pretty mean."

"Where are Trudy and the others?"

"As soon as I saw them coming up the road, I told everyone I could," Sunny said, looking back towards the saloon. "They're in positions around the saloon, just like you said. It ain't much, but this little militia you've pulled together just might save the town. I'll be set up by the store – lets hope they don't get that far." Sunny left, rifle at the ready. I turned to Ringo.

"I'm ready. You better be, too."

Ringo gulped, but pulled out his pistol just the same. The two of us ran down the hill towards the general store and saloon. All around the front of both stores were boxes and sacks full of dirt, piled up to create makeshift cover. Aside from Sunny, I could see Trudy carrying a massive pump action shotgun in position by her store, along with about half a dozen other people, all armed with rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. I ducked behind a piece of cover in front of the saloon, and Ringo stayed behind a crate near Sunny.

"I warned ya, cunt!" Joe Cobb's voice rang out. I peeked over the box I was using for cover with Roscoe at the ready. There were six of them, but they weren't all armed with guns; one had a baseball bat with a couple of nails in it, and another had a meat cleaver. The rest were armed with shotguns, and Cobb held a .357 magnum revolver in the air. "I warned you what would happen if you didn't hand him over! Now it's too late!"

"Too late for you, maybe," Trudy said under her breath. A hissing sound erupted next to me. I turned just in time to see Trudy toss a lit stick of dynamite over the barricade and watched it sail through the air right towards the Powder Gangers. With a flash and a bang, the town opened up, and the air was filled with gunfire.

But what happened next, I honestly didn't expect.

As soon as I aimed down Roscoe's sights at the invading gang, the whole world began to slow down. This wasn't normal, like the heightened sense of awareness you'd get when your body is pumping you full of adrenaline; this felt artificial. I could see each and every one of the Powder Gangers clearly, almost like they had a glowing outline, and without knowing how, I felt like I could target individual body parts on all of them.

Next thing I knew, I heard a voice in my ear – not like an external voice, but a voice coming from within my actual ear canal. It was robotic and mechanical, yet vaguely feminine and oddly cheerful.

"Thank you for using V.A.T.S., also known as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. This function of your Pip Boy 3000 will assist you in targeting, allowing for greater freedom and heightened accuracy with the weapon of your choice!"

Well, that's new.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I'm a decent enough shot with Roscoe. Skill with a gun is something you have to develop out of necessity if you want to survive in the irradiated wasteland. I can't really pull off trick shots, but when it comes to simple but effective, I'm pretty decent.

When V.A.T.S. activated, I felt like GOD.

Three pulls of the trigger later and the three closest Powder Gangers went down hard; one neck shot, and two headshots. Cobb dove for cover behind the Goodsprings town sign. Sunny took careful aim with her rifle, and the ganger who was standing next to Cobb went down. The one in the back faltered, dropped his gun, and started running away from the incoming hail of gunfire.

"Hey man, what the fuck!" Cobb yelled, still hiding behind the sign. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"Fuck you, man! I'm not dyin' for this shit!" the ganger yelled back, not even slowing down. Cobb was now all alone, and he knew it. The sign was starting to splinter from all the bullets hitting it. Trudy held out her hand, and shouted for people to hold their fire. When the gunfire quieted down, an odd stillness fell over everything.

"I'm gonna give you one chance!" Trudy shouted across the street, her shotgun still pointed in Cobb's direction. "Leave Goodspings alone, and we won't kill you for tresspassin'!" Cobb poked his head out from behind the sign. His revolver was still cocked, ready to fire.

"Fuck you, bitch!" he shouted back. "This is Powder Ganger territory!" I had a shot. So I slipped into V.A.T.S., and decided to take it.

"Hey Cobb!" I yelled at him. He looked at me and his eyes went wide when he saw Roscoe pointed right at his skull. "Welcome to Goodsprings!"

Cobb was dead before he hit the ground.

* * *

The sun may have set, but the sky still had a slight hint of blue about it. I'd stuck around to help the townsfolk clear away the bodies, and get the fuel cells for my Corvega from Chet. Before I left town for good, Sunny, Ringo and I were all sitting on one of the boxes used for cover earlier. Sunny was drinking a beer, Ringo was smoking, and I was nursing a flask full of whisky. Sunny's dog Cheyenne was sitting on the ground, gnawing on a piece of meat.

"Thanks again for helping me out," he said. "Both of you. I owe you a huge favor for this."

"Don't mention it," I said. "You already paid me."

"I was gonna stick around for a few days more, see if there's anything I can do to pay back all the trouble I caused." I heard Sunny mutter under her breath "That'd take more'n a couple of days," as she took a swig of beer. Ringo either didn't hear her, or just ignored her, "But if you ever find yourself up by New Vegas, look me up at the Crimson Caravan camp. What are you gonna do?"

"I got some… business I gotta take care of." I said, taking a long draw from my flask. "Some men stole something from me, and left me for dead. I aim to repay their kindness."

"Oh! By the way," Sunny spoke up. "Trudy wanted me to thank you for fixin' her radio." I waved it off; it was just a couple of loose wires, it took less than a minute. At that moment, we were interrupted by a familiar squeaking sound. Coming from around the bend, Victor rolled along the street and stopped in front of us.

"Howdy, pardner!" he said cheerfully. "So, when do the rustlers show up?" The three of us just sat there in silence, looking at the oblivious robot. Finally, I decided to break the silence.

"They came around at sunset. The fight's already been over for a good long while. Didn't you hear any of the gunfire?" Victor's screen flickered.

"Didn't hear a thing. Guess I must've dozed off there for a minute." Suddenly, his screen winked out of focus, replaced with static. A red light blinked underneath the monitor and a voice (different from Victor's normal voice and unfamiliar to me) issued forth from the speaker:

**[Override Command: 16-Delta]**

And then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the red light winked out, and Victor's face returned to the screen. "I truly am sorry I couldn't help you, pardner," the robot said in his original voice. The three of us looked to one another, wondering what in the hell had just happened. Desperately looking for an out, I glanced at my Pip Boy.

"Well, would you look at the time," I said hastily getting up from the box. "I best be going. Ringo, good luck to you. Sunny, you keep on smiling. And Victor…" I searched for something appropriate to say. "It's been unique."

"Happy Trails!" the robot waved to me as I turned and walked down the road out of town.


	3. Chapter 2: Primm

**Chapter 2: Primm**

* * *

_Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our program. This is Mr. New Vegas. I've got some news for you. A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness and is expected to make a full recovery. Now that is a delivery service you can count on! Also, unconfirmed reports indicate that the NCR Correctional Facility is under prisoner control following a successful riot. Locals should avoid anyone who looks like they've done time. Today's headlines were brought to you by Primm: the other New Vegas. Got some Dean Martin coming up, talking about the greatest feeling in the world: love. Ain't That a Kick in the Head? It sure is, Dino. It sure is._

* * *

There were 13 miles of broken road between where I'd crashed my car and Primm. Once I'd installed the power cells in the engine and pushed it back onto the road, the trip was pretty uneventful… but that was to be expected. One of the biggest curses of the wasteland is also one of its greatest benefits: because people tended to cluster in small, tight knit communities, there would be vast expanses of very little, or nothing at all. And more often than not, "nothing at all" just meant giant mutant bugs, which made people even less likely to want to travel.

That's one of the reasons I was unsurprised to find my car unmolested after a week. The I-15 gets more traffic than a lot of roads, sure, but that just means it might get one or two caravans passing that way a month, if that. Add in the fact that (unless you saw it running) you could easily mistake my Corvega for one of the innumerable broken, rusted, burned out husks littering almost every road, it meant that if anyone did happen to pass by it, they likely wouldn't have even given it a second glance.

It was close to 10 pm when I rolled up to the outskirts of Primm. The town was cut in half by the I-15, with an overpass connecting the east side and the west side. The east side had all the casinos, like the Bison Steve with its broken down roller coaster, and the Vikki and Vance with its stupid death car exhibit. More important to me though, the east side had a Mojave Express outpost – specifically, the outpost where I was supposed to return and deliver the payment, according to the delivery order I'd been given at the same time as the Platinum Chip. If I was lucky, there might be some information there I could use to find the man who shot me.

Because of the wall surrounding most of the town, the only easy way into the east side of Primm was the overpass, and that meant going through the west side of town. The only things of note about the west side were a half dozen abandoned buildings – which is why the lights coming from the west side were so strange. The lights didn't look like fires. It looked like someone had got the street lights in a small section of town up and running. So I parked my car by the side of the road, and headed the rest of the way into town on foot.

"Hey!" A voice eventually called out to me from the darkness. I looked around, trying to find where it came from, my eyes landing on what looked like a makeshift guard shack made out of bits of scrap metal. "Where do you think you're going?" When I got closer, I could see the man speaking to me from inside the guard shack was wearing an NCR trooper uniform: light brown fatigues, brown shoulder armor with "NCR" stenciled on it, a pair of goggles on his face, and a tan helmet. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder, across his back.

"I'm going to Primm," I said honestly, pointing in the general direction of the east side of town. "Is that a problem?"

"Primm is off limits," the NCR soldier said simply, crossing his arms over his chest. I looked at him questioningly.

"Off limits? Off limits to who? I didn't think Primm fell under NCR jurisdiction," yet, I added mentally. I had mixed feelings about the New California Republic, as did a lot of people. On the one hand, the NCR did a lot of good. Most of the territory that fell under NCR protection was among the safest you could find in the wasteland. People could live in relative peace, and even raise families without having to worry about raiders or slavers or mutants every moment of every day. But on the other hand, a good chunk of the people who ran the NCR administration – politicians, government officials, generals – they were all useless and incompetent, or horribly corrupt, and they were in serious risk of running the fledgling nation into the ground.

Part of the NCR's problem was that it was expanding way too fast. They were spreading 'the good word of the NCR' further east every day, without bothering to make sure the places they 'annexed' (a fancy word for conquered) were properly cared for or protected. "Uniting everyone under one banner so they can be ignored or interfered with equally" could've been their damn motto.

"Didn't you hear about the prison break?" the NCR trooper explained. "Some of the Powder Gangers came south and have taken over Primm. Everyone inside is either dead or in hiding. The NCR is here to contain the situation. And that means no one in or out."

"I think I can handle myself," I said patting Roscoe, which I had strapped to my hip. "Besides that, I have business in Primm I need to take care of. I bet I could get in, get done, and get out before the Powder Gangers even knew I was there." The NCR soldier looked unimpressed.

"Normally I'd say it was your ass. But right now, I have orders to hold the line here, and orders are orders. You're not getting into Primm."

I rubbed my eyes in exasperation. I hated dealing with NCR troops.

"Look, who's your commanding officer?" I asked. He stayed silent, and I continued. "Call your commanding officer on that radio I know you have, and let him know there's a courier here who wants to speak with him about getting into Primm. That way, you can continue to follow your orders, and I can do what I need to do." He continued to stay silent, apparently weighing his options. Finally he reached for the radio that was sitting on the desk next to him.

"Lieutenant Hayes?" He said into the radio. A muffled voice crackling with static replied.

"What is it, Corporal?"

"I have a… Well, he says he's a courier, sir. He's requesting access to Primm and wishes to speak with you." There was a moment of static filled silence.

"Alright, send him down, Corporal. Good work." The radio clicked off.

"Head down the road; you'll find Lieutenant Hayes in a tent at the south end of town." The NCR trooper said to me, putting his radio back on the desk. "But if you want my advice, you'll stay on this side of the overpass if you don't want to get shot."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, walking past the guard post and down the dimly lit street. It wasn't long before I found the tents the trooper was talking about. There were two of them, with doors made out of corrugated metal; the tents were set up underneath a pair of streetlights they'd somehow managed to get working. Hanging from one of the lights was an NCR flag: a two headed bear on a white background, standing above the words "New California Republic," written proudly in gold. One of the bear heads was looking at a red star, and a red stripe covered the bottom of the flag.

The metal door on one of the tents opened up, and an NCR soldier stepped out to greet me. He was wearing heavier looking armor than the corporal at the gatepost, with a chest piece that covered most of his fatigues. Instead of a helmet, he was wearing a dark green beret, with a gold bear pin. He walked towards me, and held his hand out to greet me.

"I'm Lieutenant Hayes of the New California Republic Army, 5th Battalion, 1st Company." I shook his hand.

"Sheason Fisher. I'm… er, a courier." Not quite as impressive, I'll admit.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Fisher. What's your business in Primm?"

"I'm trying to find the men who shot me," I replied simply, pointing at the scar on my right cheek. "My only lead is the Mojave Express outpost in town. All I'd need is fifteen minutes in town to find any information I can. Thirty, tops. But I understand you aren't letting anyone in or out, right?" He nodded.

"We were sent out here to hold back the tide of convicts from the correctional facility. But the problem is, the convicts are better armed and organized than our intel suggested. We've cornered and cut off the small force in town, so they can't get reinforcements, but I've lost some good men, and I can't spare any more to make a push to drive them back."

"Sorry to hear that," I said diplomatically. Honestly, I couldn't care less. "I am curious, though… why are you telling me all this?"

"You said you're a courier, correct?" I nodded in response. He continued. "I'll let you into Primm, in exchange for a favor. I need some more reinforcements, but my men and I only have short-wave radios, and like I said, I can't spare anyone to make the trip to the Mojave Outpost," he reached into one of the pouches on his belt, and pulled out a folded envelope. "All I would need from you is to deliver this reinforcement request to Major Knight. He's in charge of requisitions at the outpost. Think you can handle that?"

"Yeah," I nodded, as he handed me the envelope. "I think I can handle that." I put the envelope into my jacket. "Truth be told, I needed to head to that outpost for supplies anyway."

"Then we have an agreement. Be careful, though – most of the convicts have holed up in the Bison Steve, turned the place into a bloody fortress. I'd stay out of there if you want to get out of town in one piece. Good luck." I nodded, and as I walked away, I heard him speak into his radio. "Private, there's a courier heading into Primm. Let him pass."

* * *

For a town supposedly taken over by convicts, Primm was really quiet. I hadn't met a single person, convict or otherwise, after crossing the overpass and heading down the main street. I still had Roscoe drawn, just in case. I could see my destination – a square, two-story building with "MOJAVE" on the front and "EXPRESS" on the side written in big (but unlit) neon lights.

As I approached the building, I saw the first signs of violence. There was a body slumped up against the side of the building. As I got closer, I could see a splatter of dried blood on the wall at head height, and a trail leading down to the deceased man's head. Something didn't feel right about this. I looked around, suspecting the body might be bait for a trap, but I couldn't see anyone. I even checked my Pip Boy – one of the features I'd discovered was a compass that had a built in "friend-or-foe" radar (how it determined what a friend or a foe was, I didn't know) – but even that turned up empty.

I knelt down to get a good look at him. His left eye was missing, replaced by a bloody hole. This didn't look recent; the body was cold, and the blood had dried up to become almost black, which probably meant he'd been dead at least for a couple of days. And then I recoiled, not because of the wound… but because I recognized who he was. This was Daniel Wyand, a courier like me. I'd met him before, two years ago, when we crossed paths during a job in Shady Sands. He was a really nice guy – last time I saw him, we'd shared a drink when the deal we'd both been hired to do went tits up, and both of us ended up without a client.

That was when I noticed that he still held something in his right hand – a piece of paper. Gingerly, I worked it free from his hands (how could a dead man have a grip that tight?), and took a look at it.

_**INSTRUCTIONS**  
Deliver the package at the north entrance to the Vegas Strip, by way of Freeside. An agent of the recipient will meet you at the checkpoint, take possession of the package, and pay for the delivery. Bring the payment to Johnson Nash at the Mojave Express agency in Primm.  
Bonus on completion: 250 caps._

_**MANIFEST**  
This package contains:  
Two (2) Oversized Dice, composed of fuzzy material_

_**CONTRACT PENALTIES**  
You are an authorized agent of the Mojave Express Package until the delivery is complete and payment has been processed, contractually obligated to complete this transaction and materially responsible for any malfeasance or loss. Failure to deliver to the proper recipient may result in forfeiture of your advance and bonus, criminal charges, and/or pursuit by mercenary reclamation teams. Mojave Express is not responsible for any injury or loss of life you experience as a result of said reclamation efforts._

I had to read over the delivery order several times, to make sure I'd read it right. Then I reached into my pocket, pulling out my own delivery order, and comparing them. The instructions were exactly the same, the payment was exactly the same… the only difference between these two orders was the package itself.

Something wasn't right. Something was seriously not right. I took another look at Daniel, and then at the Mojave Express building. If I was going to find anything, inside was my best bet, so I put both delivery orders away, and carefully opened the door. Nobody was inside. Two things on the counter caught my eye, however.

The first was a very large metal ball. It looked like a robot, with a reinforced speaker grille on the front, transmitters and antennae coming off it, and… a laser? There was a license plate bolted to the side, and I could tell that it was there in a futile attempt to fix some kind of problem. Most of the letters on the license plate had either been worn or shot off, so the only thing left was "ED-E." My curiosity got the better of me, and I pulled back the license plate to get a look inside. It was broken, obviously – some servos and gyroscopes looked like they needed either recalibration or replacement. It looked advanced, sure, but a lot of the components appeared to be, at the very least, similar to components in my car. I could've probably had it up and running in five minutes. But I left it where it was. It wasn't mine.

The second thing I noticed was a simple note. I unfolded it, and gave it a look.

_Ruby: We've taken refuge in the Vikki & Vance. Get there as soon as you can._  
_-Johnson_

* * *

I knocked on the front door of the Vikki & Vance casino, checking around to see if there were any convicts. A panel on the door slid open, and I was greeted by a pair of eyes.

"Who are you? What do you want?" a voice growled at me through the eye slot.

"I'm a courier. I need to speak with Johnson Nash." The eye slot slammed shut, and I heard a muffled voice from inside yell: "Johnson! Courier to see you!" There was a pause. "He don't look like one 'o them bandits!" Another pause, and then the eye slot opened.

"Alright, Johnson says to let you in. But I got my eye on you. Pull any funny business, an' I'll perforate you." And with that, he opened the door, slamming it shut and locking it as soon as I stepped inside. It was a dusty casino, with a weak sort of orange lighting. In the center of the building was an ancient car, riddled with bullet holes (the "death car" exhibit), and a Protectron robot stood nearby, wearing a cowboy hat.

An old man walked up to me; he had a dark, wrinkled face that almost looked like leather, a weary expression, and short, very curly grey hair. He was wearing a grey work shirt with dirty brown overalls. He had a cigarette hanging loosely out of his mouth that he didn't even bother to remove while he talked.

"I don't know what it was brought you to Primm, youngster, but you might wanna rethink your plans. Whole town's gone to hell." He let loose a puff of smoke from his nostrils when he finished.

"You Johnson Nash?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yep. Husband to Ruby Nash. Lived in Primm goin' on eight years now, thick and thin. I'm a trader, primarily, for what it's worth with things like they are."

"But you run the Mojave Express outpost in town, too, right?"

"Yeah, Jimmy told me you was a courier when he let you in. I don't got any work for you right now, I'm sorry to say. We kinda got bigger problems." I shook my head, and reached for the delivery order.

"No, you don't understand. I was supposed to deliver a package and it was taken from me. I thought you might be able to help me find who would try and take it, if I showed you this." I handed him the delivery order, and he studied it carefully, a look of dawning comprehension coming over his face.

"Oh," he said, as if he suddenly understood everything. "So you're talking about one of _them_ packages. That just had strange written all over it, but we couldn't turn down the caps." Suddenly, I had a sinking feeling in my gut.

"What was strange about it?"

"That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it. The first deadbeat we hired to do the job cancelled. Hope a sandstorm from the Divide skins him alive. Well, that's where you came in, I guess." Something that he said earlier caught my attention, and I decided to pursue it.

"Cowboy robot?" I took a look around the casino, and my eyes returned to the Protectron with the cowboy hat. Someone walked by it, and it turned with a shudder. Even from where I was at the front of the casino I could hear its voice (completely free of any kind of emotion or inflection) say **HOW-DY PART-NER. YEE-HAW.** I pointed at it. "Do you mean that one over there?" Johnson shook his head.

"Nope. Different fella. Bigger. Had himself a face on a screen, and he talked more like you or me." I paused. No… no, he couldn't mean… could he? I shook it off. It couldn't be Victor. The way the people in Goodsprings talked about him, it sounded like he'd been living there for 15 years, and had never left. Instead of pursuing details about the robot, I decided to ask about the other courier.

"The other guy – the first courier you hired for the job. You said he cancelled?"

"Yeah, got this look when he saw you next down on the courier list. His expression turned right around, asked me if your name was for real. I said, sure as lack 'o rain, that's the name I'd been handed. Then he turned down the job, just like that. I asked if he was sure, it was good money. Nope. Let 'Courier Six' carry the package, that's what he said. Then he just up and walked out."

"Do you know who he was? Where he went?" I asked. Things were getting stranger by the minute, but maybe the original courier knew who shot me.

"No idea. Sounds like you two had a history for him to act like that. And turn down the money, too. Maybe he saw trouble in that package of yours. Maybe he thought your name was bad luck. Not for me to say." Or more likely, I thought to myself, he knew someone was after the chip and didn't want to get shot in the face. Either way, I could tell the original courier was a dead end.

"Look, back to what I was asking: some men stole my package, and left me for dead," I said, to try and grab his attention. "A man in a checkered suit and some thugs. Do you know if they came this way?" He tapped his chin, and a bit of ash fell off his cigarette to the ground.

"Well… now you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw a fella in a daisy suit come through with some 'o them Great Khan misfits. They was talkin' about a chip. If you wanna find 'em, your best bet is goin' to be talkin' to Deputy Beagle. Since they came to town he was keepin' a good bit of notes on 'em. He may have heard where they were going. Only… well, there's a sorta… hitch." What now?

"Hitch?"

"Well, he was skulkin' round the Bison Steve when those thugs who call 'emselves Powder Gangsters or whatever rolled into town. That was a couple'a days ago, and I ain't seen him since."

That was bad news. I remembered what Hayes had said – the Powder Gangers had turned the Bison Steve into a fortress. I doubted that even with Roscoe, and the enhanced accuracy of V.A.T.S. that I'd stand much of a chance on my own. I needed more firepower. And that was when a thought crept into my head, followed shortly by a smile.

"Hey, Johnson? About that broken robot of yours…"

* * *

When I stepped into the Bison Steve, the little round robot I'd found in the Mojave Express outpost (who I'd decided to call "ED-E" after the license plate) hovered in the air beside me. ED-E emitted a soft whirr and a few chirps as it floated along. I scanned the inside, but didn't see anyone. Then again, the lighting inside was so poor, I could barely see anything. There were a few overturned tables in front of me, acting like barricades.

ED-E and I moved forward. I came to a doorframe, and peeked my head around the corner. Off in the distance, down the hall, I could see one of the Powder Gangers facing a corner; from the sound, I could tell he was… relieving himself. I turned to ED-E.

"Well," I whispered. "Let's hope that laser of yours still works."

Seemingly taking that as a cue, the robot beeped and chirped as if in response, and then some very loud music – like the trumpets and drums you would hear in a military march – burst forth from the speaker in front. It zoomed around the corner, heading straight for the convict, who had stopped pissing long enough to pick up his rifle.

Well, so much for stealth.

With a flash of light, and a sound which could only be described as ZOWNTCH!, the robot fired its laser at the convict's rifle. The Powder Ganger dropped the now glowing hot weapon immediately, giving me the perfect opening to land two V.A.T.S. shots in his chest. He hit the back wall, and collapsed forward onto the ground, dead.

ED-E floated back to me, a triumphant sounding trumpet song playing from its speaker.

"Uh… Good… job?" I offered. ED-E beeped cheerfully. Any sense of congratulations or victory was short lived, however; all around, I could hear the authoritative sounds of people yelling and shouting orders, accompanied by the sound of boots tromping through the hotel closing in on our position.

There were two ways I could go at this point: straight ahead and around a corner, or towards a nearby door. I rushed for the door – and cursed when I realized it was locked. I banged my shoulder against it at least twice, to try and force it, but it didn't budge. ED-E started playing that same marching music from before. Going for broke, I kicked hard against the door with all my strength. The lock broke off, and the door swung inwards.

"He's in here!" I heard a voice say. I spun around in time to see one of the convicts coming around the other corner, and then get hit by a glancing shot from ED-E's laser. Two more came around the corner, and I fired a few shots in their direction, backing up into the open door. ED-E fired a laser into one, hitting him right in the middle of his face. He glowed white hot for half a second, and then crumbled into a smoking pile of ash. The ganger next to him ducked back behind the wall out of sight.

For half a second, I thought ED-E and I might actually be able to take them all on… and then a nearby couch erupted into flames. I flinched, but looked up just in time to see another ganger come around the corner… carrying a flamethrower! The lobby lit up by the stream of superheated napalm. I ducked into the hallway, ED-E having already flown in, and slammed the door against the heat. Without a lock, it wouldn't hold him for long; I just needed some time to figure out a way to deal with him.

I ran around the corner and down the long hallway, ED-E floating just behind me. There was another door at the end of the hall; I heard the other door behind me splinter. I tried the door and cursed my luck – this one was locked, too. I turned just in time to see the flamethrower ganger round the corner.

I had one chance, but only if V.A.T.S. was with me. I took careful aim and tried to hit the fuel tank on his back. One of the bullets was a little too high and hit the wall behind him; another bullet was a little too low and grazed his shoulder; the last bullet hit the tank, but it was only a glancing shot, and deflected off into the ceiling. I let loose a very loud, violent exclamation.

ZOWNTCH!

The fuel tank glowed white hot, but rather than disintegrate into ash, it exploded in a massive fireball, showering the end of the hall in flame. The light in the middle of the hall shattered in a shower of glass and white phosphor, and a wave of heat washed over me. As soon as the dust settled, and I looked at the end of the hall I could see all that was left of the ganger: flaming chunks of meat and a bloody stain. I was sure my mouth was hanging wide open, while I just stared at ED-E, which floated happily in the air next to me.

A triumphant sounding trumpet song played from ED-E's speaker.

* * *

I opened the door to the hotel's kitchen carefully. ED-E and I had run into a few more gangers after the one with the flamethrower, but it seemed like they'd gotten the message. I'd figured out how to signal to ED-E to be more cautious, and not just shoot everything in sight. Even so, we'd only run into two more – maybe. The rest seemed to be hiding.

Inside the kitchen, however, there were no gangers – just a single solitary figure on his knees. He looked to be about thirty, with feathery blonde hair, and oddly soft features – something you really didn't see on people in the wasteland, much less on a man. His hands were bound in front of him.

"I do not suppose you came here to rescue me?" He said, looking up at me, eyeing Roscoe. "I would cross my fingers but my hands are numb."

"You must be Deputy Beagle," I said, motioning for ED-E to watch the door.

"Why, yes. Yes I am. Pleasure to meet you. As you can probably see, I am in a bit of a predicament here. I would be most appreciative if you would set me free." I don't know if it was the nonchalant tone in his voice, but for some reason this 'Deputy' seemed incredibly shady. Even so, he was the best lead I had.

"Way I hear it, you have information on a guy in a checkered suit who passed through here a couple of days ago, with some Khans." He nodded.

"Indeed I do, good sir, and I would be thrilled to share that information with you as soon as I am released from captivity." I narrowed my eyes. This guy was trying to play me, I could tell, but he might have information I needed. I looked around the kitchen, and my eyes fell on a nearby serrated knife. It was dirty, and still had a bit of dried blood on it. I put Roscoe back in his holster, grabbing the knife and kneeling down to Beagle's level so I could talk to him eye to eye.

"Alright. I'll set you free." His face lit up.

"Oh, that's just marvelous! I -" before he got a chance to continue, I held the knife close to his face. He shut up instantly.

"I want to make one thing perfectly clear, Beagle. If you try and run away without telling me what I need to know, I **will** find you, and I **will** gut you with this knife. Clear?" He started sweating bullets.

"Oh! Why, uh, of course! I would never let you fight my kidnappers with my help. Uh, without it! I meant without it! You just… lead the way!"

I cut the ropes around his wrists with a snap.

* * *

"Well! That was quite the adventure!" Beagle exclaimed as the two of us walked into the Vikki & Vance. "We taught those convicts a thing or two, didn't we?" I just sort of… stared at him for a minute. We hadn't run into any Powder Gangers on the way back out. Turns out, he wasn't shady – he was just a coward. I sighed.

"Whatever. Look – deal's a deal. I set you free, you tell me about the man in the checkered coat. What do you know?"

"Ahh, yes. My memory is much clearer, now that I am free from my bondage." There was something odd about the way he talked. I couldn't put my finger on it. "I was skul – er, I mean, performing recon, gathering information on some of the Powder Gangers, when some Great Khans arrived in town with your friend in the suit."

"He ain't my friend," I said with a glare.

"Well, yes. I gathered as much, since I heard them talking about some delivery they took from a courier. That must have been you then?" I nodded. "They said they would be heading through Nipton to Novac to meet a contact there. And that is all I know, I swear."

Well, it wasn't much. But it was more than I had 20 minutes ago when I entered the town. I flipped the knife around in my hands, and presented it to Beagle, hilt first. He flinched as I twirled it so close to him.

"Take it," I said. "A memento of your… 'glorious escape," I said with a smirk. "C'mon ED-E. Let's get out of here."

The robot chirped happily and floated behind me out the door.


	4. Chapter 3: Whiskey Rose

**Chapter 3: Whiskey Rose**

* * *

_You're listening to Radio New Vegas. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas. You know, I feel something magic in the air tonight – and I'm not just talking about the gamma radiation! It's time for some news. Unconfirmed reports say NCR's General Lee Oliver may have uprooted from his post at Camp McCarran in order to be present at Hoover Dam. NCR sources have said that holding the dam against Caesar's Legion has become their main strategic priority and this move would not be unexpected. These headlines were brought to you by Vault 21. Everything's better when you experience it in a Vault. Got a song for you right now that's about a man that's cold on the exterior, but deep down, you know he's got a good heart, and his name is Johnny Guitar._

* * *

It was morning when I finally set off from the outskirts of Primm towards the NCR outpost. ED-E made a good watchdog while I got some sleep in my Corvega… though, it was odd waking up to the sounds of laser blasts discharging, and very loud, oddly militaristic marching tunes. Not bad, just… different.

The morning was actually pretty nice. The sun was just starting to rise over the mountains to the east, bathing the desert in a warm, golden glow. There was a refreshing sort of cool crispness to the air, holding out as long as it could before the sun got hot enough to burn it away. There were a smattering of clouds, and the sky was a rich, vibrant blue – the kind of color you just didn't see anymore… at least, not anywhere else.

Maybe I was appreciating the view because I was still just happy to be alive, but to tell you the truth: the Mojave Wasteland is an okay place to live. I've been around, and seen tons of places in the wastes. New Reno, Circle Junction, Shady Sands, Vault City, and The Hub, just to name a few… I've even been as far north as Montana, but that's another story entirely. The point is this: most of those places all have generally the same problem. They're all shitholes. A few places are nicer shitholes than others, but you don't have to look all that hard to find places that are truly awful, or even terrifying.

Places like The Glow, which is still so full of radiation 200 years after The War that you can't even get near it. Then there's the Boneyard, where the only things you'll find are the twisted metal frames of Los Angeles skyscrapers and thousands upon thousands of human skeletons, flash fried in their last moment of living. And let's not forget New Reno where the sky is _green_, for some goddamn reason… When you realize that the whole world – what's left of it – is just one horror show after another, you can learn to appreciate a place like the Mojave.

Maybe that's why I took the job. I just wanted to see a place that wasn't as bad as everywhere else.

It's just too bad the price of admission was getting shot.

* * *

"Caravan, citizen, pilgrim, or…" Major Knight asked me from behind his desk. Knight was an NCR officer like Hayes, distinguished by a green beret (which was hanging on a coat rack behind his desk). Unlike Hayes, however, he seemed to lack the discipline of a frontline combat soldier; he also lacked the armor. He was wearing a tan collared shirt, a simple nametag over one pocket, a few ribbons over the other, and a dark green tie that hung suspiciously loose around his neck. It was difficult to get a bead on how old he was, mostly because I couldn't tell if the lines on his face (he had many under and around his eyes, around his mouth, along his cheeks, etc…) were from age or stress.

"Courier," I said simply, sitting across from him, my arms folded across my chest. I was surprised and kind of amused when he actually wrote it down. He looked up and explained.

"Just need something for the log book, keeping tabs on traffic through the Outpost… although mostly just in, not out these days. Now, what about your robot?" His pencil was at the ready. I blinked, not understanding.

"ED-E? What about it?"

"I'm going to need to put something in the log book about the robot as well. What's his business?" I tried to stifle a laugh.

"You need to – why?" I asked, still somewhat confused at something that, to me, seemed absurd. He sighed.

"Do you know how many sentient robots I've had to check through this outpost in the relatively short time I've been stationed here?" Before I could get a chance to offer up an answer, he continued. "13. After the fifth, I decided to ask about every robot, just in case." Fair enough, I thought.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I repaired ED-E in Primm, and based on its actions so far, it seems to have some basic algorithms to simulate thought, but I don't think it's actually sentient. Hell, I don't even think it can talk. I've only heard beeps so far." He seemed to accept that.

"Alright," he scribbled something in the log book, and looked back up at me. "What is your purpose and intended destination once leaving the Outpost?"

"My destination is back in the Mojave, towards Novac" I said, reaching into my jacket and pulling out the note from Hayes. "My purpose here is to just to pick up some supplies, and to act as courier for this."

"Well, we can certainly help you with the supplies, just so long as you fill out the work orders and sign for the parts first." I nodded, well aware of NCR red tape. Knight took the note from me, opened and unfolded it, and skimmed through the documents. He let out a weary sigh, and I could almost swear that I saw a few more wrinkles materialize on his face.

"I should have known Hayes' unit was in trouble. I didn't think it was bad enough that he'd fill out an official reinforcement request, though," He set the papers down on his desk, and looked at me with a pained expression he tried his best to hide. "I'd like to help – but we can't spare any more units. We have to maintain a minimum headcount at this outpost. Orders from the West."

I rubbed my temples, utterly exhausted with hearing NCR soldiers lamenting their inability to do anything because of orders. Part of me – a big part in fact – wanted to just get up, say "Well, sorry to hear that. I'll be leaving now!" and walk out. I'd fulfilled my part of the bargain with Hayes'. What happened after the letter was delivered was not my concern, nor should it have been.

And then I thought about the people who lived in Primm. They seemed decent enough… I couldn't let Deputy Beagle be the only law there. That would just be cruel and unusual punishment, inflicting his ineptitude on them. At least if the NCR moved in – if only to clear out the escaped convicts – then Primm would be better off for it.

"Do the troops have to be from this outpost?" I finally said, an idea quickly forming in my head. Knight looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"I was under the impression Hayes was only resorting to a written request, asking for reinforcements from this outpost, because his unit only has short-wave radios left. Do you have any sort of long range communication here?" I already knew the answer, but I was trying to get him to actually think, as opposed to just using orders as an excuse to do nothing.

"Of course. This outpost functions as a communication relay hub between NCR forces in the Mojave and the West. What are you getting at?" I sighed. This was like trying to get a brick wall to think for itself. I spelled it out as simply as I could, speaking very slowly just in case.

"I bet a resourceful guy like you can use any one of the radios here at this outpost, find some unassigned unit on patrol somewhere, and point them in the direction of Primm. Hayes will get the reinforcements he needs, Primm will be free of convicts, and the outpost will continue to maintain the needed headcount to satisfy your orders. Everyone's happy!" Knight blinked a few times, almost like he was trying to process this idea.

"That… That's a good idea," he said, conceding the point. I clapped my hands together… probably with a bit more enthusiasm than I should have.

"Take it then, it's yours. I give you permission to use it like you thought of it," I said, glad he finally got the message. "Now, if you'll excuse me," I got up from the chair, and made for the door. "Where's the bar? I need a drink." Knight looked perplexed, and looked at his watch.

"A drink? But it's only 10 in the morning."

I sighed again, vowing silently to make it a double.

* * *

The Mojave Outpost was nothing special. It was just a few squat, one story buildings on the east side of the I-15, on a relatively flat part of the mountain range south of Primm. The buildings were surrounded on all sides by a chain link fence, and a few sandbag dugouts. The north part of the fence had a red sign; "NCR RANGER OUTPOST" written on the top and "MOJAVE" written on the bottom in white paint, with an NCR flag hung in the middle.

I can only imagine the reason the NCR picked this particular bit of nowhere was because the west side of the I-15 here had the remains of a pre-war toll booth. It was rusted, the paint was almost completely peeled, and a few broken cars littered the road under the disused toll. Underneath the sign that said "Prepare to stop" was my parked Corvega, being dutifully guarded by ED-E, who was happily floating in the air right above the car.

Completely eclipsing the outpost, however, was the monument: a massive statue in the middle of the I-15, at least 20 or 30 feet tall if not more, made entirely out of scrap metal. It depicted two giant men, shaking hands. I was not interested in the statue, however; I was more interested in the contents of the outpost cantina, which sat adjacent to the barracks. I'd get a drink (or three), I'd pick up some more supplies, and then I'd head out to Novac by way of Nipton.

Before I could slip into the cantina for a quick drink, a loud, shrill whistle cut through the air. I looked around the outpost – I didn't see anyone at ground level. The whistle sounded again, and I looked up. On the roof of the barracks was a woman wearing a cowboy hat, motioning for me to come up to the roof with one hand, and carrying a very large scoped rifle in the other. Normally, I would've ignored her and continued into the cantina, but I've learned from experience that when someone with a high powered sniper rifle wants to have a word with you, it's probably for the best to at least see what they want.

When I made my way up the plank that led to the roof, the woman had gone back to sitting in her chair, her feet propped on a few sandbags on the edge of the roof. She faced north-east in her chair, towards the Mojave, and was directly beneath a few metal pipes and camouflaged netting, creating a sort of awning against the desert sun. Next to her was a table; on it was a pair of binoculars, a half finished cup of coffee, and an ashtray with a still smoking cigarette placed on the ashtray's rim. She turned to look at me from beneath her cowboy hat, but I couldn't see her eyes behind her mirrored sunglasses. I could tell immediately that this was no rank-and-file NCR soldier; she was a Ranger. I had a lot more respect for Rangers, mostly because the ones I'd met in the past could actually think for themselves – and because they seemed to know when to follow orders, and when regulations could go hang.

"Hey there," she said, taking a sip from her coffee. "You're that courier with the car, right?" She motioned to my Corvega – ED-E still floating silently above it, circling the area – with her coffee cup.

"Yeah," I said simply. "What of it?"

"I have a job that someone with a car would be perfect for. Interested?" She asked.

"What's the pay?" As much as I wasn't really all that interested in any job other than finding the man who shot me, I conceded silently to myself that I needed more caps. Sure, I had a decent supply in that hidden compartment in the trunk of my car, but I'd put that there for emergencies only. I needed some every day spending money.

"The pay? The pay is a good goddamn thanks from the heart of the Republic!" She said with well practiced enthusiasm. I said nothing, and she turned her head back to look towards me with a grin. She chuckled.

"Don't worry, I'm just shittin' ya with the NCR line. Mock if you like, but its done wonders for morale around here. Especially since President Kimball keeps saying 'getting shot at is its own damn reward' every chance he gets." She scoffed, and took a drag from her cigarette. "Do this job for me, though, I'll do what I can. People around here know I hate most everyone, so if I put in a word for you, that's gold."

"I'd much rather have caps," I said honestly. "But alright, I'll hear you out. What do I call you?"

"Ghost," she said simply. "My callsign. That's all you need to know… 'bout my name, at least."

"Ok, Ghost, what's the problem?"

"I think there's trouble in Nipton. There's no traffic from there on the roads. I can explain that away easily enough, but the smoke from the town I can't."

"Smoke?" I asked. She handed me the binoculars, and pointed to a spot in the valley below.

"Here, use these. 12 miles, due east."

I looked through the binoculars, and followed the path of the Nipton highway, until I found what Ghost was pointing at. It was far enough off in the distance that I couldn't really make it out all that clearly, even with the binoculars, but there were a few small squares I assumed were buildings, and a few dark blotches that was probably smoke. While I looked at the town, she continued.

"I'm sure it's been hit. What I need to know is if there's anyone from the town who survived. It might be Powder Gangers with all the smoke in the air, but it could just as easily be one of the local raider gangs, like the Jackals, or the Vipers, or even the Fiends – but I can't imagine what they'd be doing this far south. If there's anybody left, they'd be in the Nipton town hall. Go there, check it out, and let me know what you find."

I considered what she said for a moment, and decided to voice a question that had been nagging me since she mentioned it.

"Why do you need someone with a car?"

"I'd prefer someone with a car because you'll be able to get there and back in about an hour, rather than half a day. I'd go myself, but if I left my perch for too long, not only would Jackson tear me a new one, but I just know that'd be the specific moment a pack of ghouls would come knockin'. And I can't send a scout to check on it, because -"

"You have to maintain a minimum headcount at the Outpost – orders from the West?" I cut her off, helpfully. She just laughed.

"Heard the line before, have you? Alright, who told you – Knight or Jackson?"

"Knight."

"That figures," she said, taking another sip from her coffee. "You didn't hear this from me, but Knight is way too soft for military life. He's a bit too… fabulous, if you catch my meaning." I bristled.

"About the job," I said, trying to steer the conversation back on track. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Just eyes and ears, that's all. Head there and poke around a bit, find out what you can, and come back for your payment. But if there really is something wrong, come back immediately. I don't want you getting killed for this."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said. "Alright, if you supply the caps, I'll get you some intel." She nodded, and gave me a half wave, half pseudo-salute.

"Mind yourself on the plank going down."

* * *

When I opened up the door to the cantina, I was hit in the face by the distinctive smell of stale alcohol mixed with cigarette smoke. The inside wasn't too brightly lit, but the wooden shutters were closed to keep out the sun. The dust and smoke swirled around the slowly spinning fans on the ceiling. There was a poster behind the bar (NCR trooper: YOU bring DEMOCRACY to this land!) next to shelves of booze, a bored looking bartender, and a girl in a cowboy hat sitting at the corner of the bar, with a bottle of whiskey beside her. And it was actual whiskey, mind – the label read "Olde Royale Premium Whiskey," rather than a bottle with a piece of tape that had "whisky" scrawled on the side like in Goodsprings.

I sat down a few stools away from the girl in the cowboy hat, and ordered a glass of whiskey. I don't know why, but for some reason the girl caught my attention. The rattan cowboy hat on her head had a few holes in the brim, a black band, and it covered a head of red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had a shotgun slung across her back and wore a brown suede jacket, a pink and white plaid shirt with black buttons, black gloves, torn jeans, and a pair of old cowboy boots that were almost as scuffed as my own. There was a strange looking diamond shaped pendant that hung around her neck.

I must have been staring, because she looked up at me with a pair of piercing grey eyes, downed the rest of her drink in one gulp, poured herself another glass, and said to me: "Lookin' for trouble?"

I looked away, just as my whiskey arrived, and decided to focus on that instead.

"No… just looking around."

"Well, you keep those eyes up'n turnin' – or I'll set 'em spinnin'," she said, downing the drink she'd poured seconds earlier, and refilling the glass. "Got no time for gawkers… or anyone lookin' for somethin' I ain't sellin'."

I nodded, but I had to wonder – where the hell was she putting all that stuff? I took a drink myself. "Surprised you can see me from that deep in the bottle…" I said with a smirk. She just laughed.

"Hah! Deep? Ain't deep by half. Closed down the bar yesterday… gonna close it again today. Rinse'n repeat. Drinkin' to forget, but it's only gettin' me pissed instead. Whiskey's always got my temper up – now more'n ever." She downed another glass. "Drinkin' used to cause all sorts of trouble back West – before I punched enough people, that is, and they all learnt to lay low when the whiskey hit."

"What are you trying to forget?" I asked.

"Hmph. Lost my caravan headin' north… the driver burned t'ash. An' the fuckers that hit it didn't even take the cargo, just burned that, too," She lifted her glass, but before she took another drink, she looked at me and said "Y'know, you're the first person to ask about that." I thought about what she was describing while she downed another drink. Burned to ash could mean fire… but it could also mean energy weapons.

"Doesn't sound like raiders…" I mused out loud, half to myself.

"My guess is Legion," she said, taking a drink. "They've been tryin' to cut NCR supply lines, and this fuckin' outpost is proof. Got us locked up tighter'n a New Vegas virgin. No caravans in, out, and just try arguin' with Jackson about it. 'Roads aren't safe,' he says. No shit, you washed-out ol' fuckup! I didn't need a goddamn Brotherhood Scribe to tell me that!"

"Who's Jackson?" I asked honestly, taking another drink. I'd heard Ghost mention the name, but I still didn't know who he was.

"NCR officer, trooper, ranger, whatever. Jackson runs this place. This fucking outpost… it's like a brahmin drive gone wrong. Supposed to be a gate north, but you come here, you get caught in the pen. Better to head back home. If you don't have a gun an' a will, don't matter much what you do when you reach here, except stare at that fuckin' monument outside."

"The monument?" I asked. "What about it?"

"Don't even try'n tell me you missed it coming in. It's like NCR showing its dick to all the East! If the Republic put as much effort into protectin' the East as they put into those two asinine giants outside, then they'd be worth that monument. Statues of two men shaking hands 'n covered in blood don't seem to be nothin' to brag about."

"You know, I saw a lot of scrap metal, but I don't think I saw any blood." She scoffed and poured herself another glass.

"I'm speakin' figurative, y'know? Isn't any blood on their damn hands. 'Course, when Caesar comes walkin' through here, there'll be blood f'real. An' after the blood dries in the sun, he'll melt that piece of Jet-induced sculpture down, an' reshape it into a bull… which by my reckonin' is makin' up for a deficiency on his part. But no matter what the state of his pecker, he's sure givin' the West a good fuckin'." I chuckled a bit. I liked this girl. She certainly had a way with words, at least. Not exactly the most refined conversation I've ever had, but certainly the most entertaining in recent memory.

"So what's that damn thing supposed to be anyway?" I said, taking another drink.

"One's a Nevada ranger, an' one's an NCR trooper. Supposed to represent unification of West an' East… or some such idealistic shit. As far as those two iron lovebirds go, they've got more spine than you'll ever see in a year from the NCR government."

"So, why are you here?"

"I'm here, 'cause whiskey an' me are ol' friends. Keeps me goin' when times get rough. Like now. Got me into the caravan business y'know – had to start transportin' water instead of liquor, though. If I hadn't switched over, I'd just end evr'y one of my trips with nothin' but glass bottles rattlin' on the back of the brahmin." As if to punctuate the point, she downed yet another glass.

"Actually… I meant, why are you here at the outpost?" She looked up at me curiously.

"What'cha mean?"

"Well, it's like what you said earlier – it's the people without a gun and a will that are stuck here. I can see the gun strapped to your back, and you certainly seem to have the will." Or maybe just the mouth, but I decided not to mention that… for my own safety. "So… what are you doing here?"

For the first time since I'd stepped in the bar, she'd stopped drinking whiskey. She just sort of stared at me with a depressed look on her face, and then she looked down into her empty glass.

"I… I dunno. For a while, I was stuck here, 'cause my caravan papers were keepin' me here. Technically, I was still owner of Cassidy Caravans, even though it was nothin' but ash, so I couldn't leave. But then, a few days ago, this runner from th' Crimson Caravan comes down here, with an offer from Alice McLafferty. At first, I told him to just fuck off. Even times bein' what they are, I wasn't lookin' to sell, even for all the whiskey in Reno. But… that offer had a lot 'o zeroes attached to it, 'an ev'ryone in the caravan business knows Alice McLafferty'd be good for a deal like that."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know what it's like. When you need the money, sometimes you just gotta let go of the past so you can live to see the future." I've had to let go of a lot of my past, I thought to myself.

"Tradin' my name for a goddamn slip of paper…" She said that with a tone of utter disgust. I couldn't tell if she was disgusted with herself for having done it, or disgusted with Crimson Caravan for giving her the offer. "Just doesn't seem right, you know? I mean, hell, I bet my pa would be spinnin' in his grave, wherever the ol' bastard ended up, if he learned I sold our name for anything. So, I guess, technically, I don't got nothin' keepin' me here anymore. Leastaways, not paperwork. But… I dunno what to do or where to go, now that my caravan is gone. So I've just sort of stayed here, spending the money I got from my caravan on whiskey."

The two of us just sort of sat in silence for a minute. The only sound in the cantina came from the slowly spinning fan blades above us. Finally I decided to break the silence.

"You could always visit your caravan, pay your respects." She looked up at me quizzically, and then seemed to consider that for a moment.

"Yeah, I s'pose… but its miles to the north, past raider territory. It'd take days just to get up there. Fuck that shit, the caravan ain't mine anymore, ain't my problem." She started to pour herself another glass.

"I could give you a ride, if you need it," I told her. She stopped pouring and deadpanned.

"Are you comin' on ta me? Cuz I already told you, that shit ain't gonna work."

"No, I'm serious. My Corvega's parked right outside. I'm gonna be heading up the 95 towards Novac, because of some… business I gotta take care of, but if you want to ride shotgun, I can give you a lift." I told her earnestly. To be honest, I don't know why I was offering. Maybe I felt sorry for her. Maybe I felt like she was a kindred spirit – someone like me just trying to make an honest living who got fucked over because the world is cruel. Hell, maybe I just wanted the company, and someone to talk to.

I could almost see the gears turning in her head as she stared at me, mouth open and eyeing me in disbelief. Eventually, she shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and said "What the hell? Why the fuck not." She held up her glass to me. "Cheers."

"Cheers," I replied, clinking our glasses together. "My name's Sheason, by the way. I gotta pick up some supplies first, but when you're ready, just head to the car guarded by the floating metal ball." I paused, then added "Oh, and we will have to come back here for a few minutes after checking out Nipton – that sniper on the roof, Ghost, hired me for a job, but it shouldn't take too long." She nodded. I dropped a few caps on the bar to pay for my whiskey.

"Yeah… I should probably close out my tab here. Which… may take a while." She took a final drink, then looked up at me and said "The name's Cass. Rose of Sharon Cassidy."

"Nice to meet you, Rose -" I said as I got up, but she cut me off.

"CASS." She said, emphatically, and finally. I decided not to press the issue.

"Cass it is then."

9


	5. Chapter 4: Nipton

**Chapter 4: Nipton**

* * *

_Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our program. This is Mr. New Vegas, and each and every one of you is wonderful in your own special way. I've got some news for you. First up, merchants are saying that there's been little contact between traders from Nipton in recent days, causing concerns that the isolated town may be in trouble. In a related story, traders from California are being turned away from Mojave Outpost, where the NCR is concerned about dangers along Nipton Highway and the I-15. You know, I think all news, whether it's good or bad, brings us closer together. Don't you? I got a great song coming up, from The Voice himself: It's Tom Jones with It's Not Unusual. Enjoy._

* * *

"You know, when y'said y'had a car," Cass paused, taking a drink from her hip flask. "I thought y'were just fuckin' with me." Cassidy was sitting next to me (riding shotgun, appropriately enough), and out of the corner of my eye I could see ED-E flying beside us, keeping pace. I didn't know how that robot moved so fast, but it kept up with the Corvega like it was nothing.

"Why would you think I was fucking with you?" I asked. She propped her feet up on the dash as she talked, slouching in the seat and watching as the desert rolled past.

"Well, who has a fuckin' car this far south? One that works? I mean, yeah, they're more common in Reno or Arroyo, but down here? Nobody has a fuckin' car!" She took another drink. I shrugged.

"Funny you should mention, New Reno was the place where I got her," She stifled a chuckle and I could swear I heard her mutter something about 'green sky' under her breath. I continued. "Most of my courier jobs were up north, so I guess I never really gave it much thought. Are cars really not that common down here?" She eyed me with suspicion.

"You a courier then?" she asked, ignoring my question.

"Yeah. Was. Am. I mean, er…" I stumbled over my words, unsure how someone would describe my current situation. "It's complicated. Let's just say I'm between jobs."

"Yeah. S'pose we both are." We were both silent for just a moment. And then the silence was broken. "Fuck! The fuck am I gonna do for money, now my goddamn caravan's gone?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something," I tried to offer helpfully. She just gave a weak sort of laugh, and took another drink from her flask. A question flashed across my mind, and I decided to give it voice. "You know, I'm curious – that is, if you don't mind me asking – how'd you find out about your caravan being hit, if you were stuck at the Outpost?"

"Ranger patrol checkin' in," she said, continuing to stare at the passing landscape. "My guess is they found enough in th' wreckage t'identify it."

"Think there's anything left?"

"Honestly? I don't think so. S'been weeks, so it's probably a Cazador nest by now."

Cazador? What the hell was a Cazador, I thought to myself. Before I could ask, she continued.

"I'm hopin' there's at least a little somethin' left. But… I'm not countin' on it. Either way, I do need t'pay my respects. I got 'em killed, so I owe 'em that much…" She paused. Then, she turned to look at me. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Fer givin' me a lift. I'm sure I would've left that fuckin' outpost eventually, but… Well, shit, even if I'd left, it'd still take me days of walkin' in the cripplin' heat, 'neath that blisterin' sun just to find the damn caravan. An' by then, I bet there wouldn't even be any fuckin' dust left." I shrugged.

"Hey, it's no big deal. I'm heading up close to there anyway, so it won't be that far of a detour." She nodded.

The conversation trailed off rather quickly as Nipton came into view. I don't really know how, but somehow the town snuck up on us despite the fact that we were travelling in what was essentially a flat desert, on a straight piece of road. There were only a few buildings in the town, but from the rising clouds of billowing black smoke, it looked like every single one of them was on fire. The town was surrounded by what I thought was a fence, at first; when I looked closer, I saw countless trailers, broken cars, and bits of metal – all of them twisted and broken and ruined – creating a sort of wall around the edges of the town. The only break in the wall was where the Nipton road cut through the town. There were splashes of color and I couldn't tell at first if it was blood or rust that turned the metal red. When I saw the body hanging limply over the side, I didn't have to wonder anymore.

I parked the car in front of the town sign (all it said was "NIPTON" in big bold letters, something about a jackpot, and on the bottom was "Trading Post – RV Park – Camping"), and checked to make sure Roscoe was loaded, just in case. ED-E was circling around the car, looking at me and beeping frantically.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Cass asked, watching me check my gun.

"Ghost hired me to check out the town, remember? I need to find out if anyone's alive in there." I slapped the magazine into Roscoe's grip, and left the car. Seconds later, I heard Cass leave the car as well, followed by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being loaded.

"You know, it might be dangerous – and from the looks of things, it probably is. You don't have to come with me."

"Fuck that! You think I'm just gonna stay in the car?" she said. I nodded, and moved towards the town, Cass falling in beside me; it's probably best not to argue with the belligerent drunk wielding a shotgun. ED-E beeped something I couldn't understand and floated along beside me.

Suddenly, a man came into view from behind the corner of one of the closest buildings. He was running around, pumping his fists in the air, whooping and hollering and just generally making a tremendous racket. He noticed us, and made his way towards me. I kept Roscoe at my side but pointed it at the ground, since I noticed he didn't have a gun or anything that looked anything like a weapon. When he got a little closer, I noticed that he had the same kind of blue shirt and grey slacks that seemed to be distinctive of the Powder Gangers, except they were ripped and torn in places. Pools of blood were beginning to form under his clothes near some of the rips. He wore a pair of glasses with a cracked left lens on his face.

"Yeeeeeaaaaah!" He yelled at no one in particular, stopping a few feet away from me. "Who has two thumbs and just won the fucking lottery?" He pointed both his thumbs at his chest. "This guy! Oh yeah! Smell that air! Couldn't you just drink it like BOOZE?" He started laughing hysterically, like it was the funniest joke in the world. Cass and I just looked at each other, wondering what was going on. Even ED-E made a confused sounding beep.

"Are… are you feeling alright?" I asked. He just kept grinning, his eyes wide with excitement.

"What, are you kidding me? I've never felt better! YEAH!" He pumped his fists in the air several times.

"What kind of lottery did you win?" He stopped when I asked that question, and just sort of stared at me for a second, like I'd just asked what the ground was.

"What lottery? THE lottery, man! That's what lottery! What, are you stupid or something? Only lottery that matters! Oh my God, SMELL THAT AIR! Ha-haa! Later!" And without a second word, he took off past me, past Cass, past the Nipton town sign, past my car… he just started running off into the desert, waving his arms and cheering.

The three of us just stared, dumbfounded, as he disappeared off into the distance, laughing hysterically. ED-E let off a series of beeps and whistles, and if I didn't know any better, I could've swore it sounded like the robot was saying "What the fuck?"

I felt a knot tighten uncomfortably in the bottom of my gut. Whatever had happened here, I had the distinct impression that it wasn't something as mundane as Powder Gangers. The three of us made our way slowly into the town, and I became acutely aware of an acrid, alien smell burning my nostrils.

"Do you smell that?" I asked out loud.

"Yeah, it's the smell of fuckin' houses burning," Cass replied, unhelpfully.

"No, it's… it doesn't smell like wood burning. It… smells…" I couldn't complete my thought as we rounded a corner. I just stopped, and couldn't help but stare at the sight in front of my eyes, unable to comprehend just what I was looking at for a few seconds. In an instant, I knew exactly what I smelled on the air.

In the middle of the street was a massive pile of burning tires. The fires roared and crackled, belching foul smelling plumes of black smoke into the air. But what caught my attention was the top of the pile. Rising out of the center like a macabre tombstone was a metal pole, and a half burned corpse that had been tied to it. The fires licked the body, like some sort of hungry, otherworldly monster. The face and nearly half of the body had been completely burned off, leaving only burned and blackened bones with bits of meat limply hanging on weakly.

"What the… fuckin' fuck! Who the fuck… I mean, this fuckin'… How the fuck… FUCK!" She finally yelled, staring at the burning corpse.

Well, that certainly demonstrates the flexibility of the word. But despite the lack of any real sentence structure, I kind of understood what she was trying to say with that string of profanity – this didn't seem like the work of some random gang of raiders. Raiders killed people and mutilated bodies, sure; I'd seen some horrific sights just as gory and even bloodier in the past. But this… this was something completely different, and it made my blood run cold. This wasn't violence just for the sake of violence. This was a message someone was trying to send.

"C'mon," I offered up. "We have to keep moving."

"Keep moving? Do you not see the body burning on the pile of tires?"

"Look, when Ghost told me to check out the town, she said that if there were any survivors they'd be in the town hall." She also told me not to get killed, I thought to myself. But I couldn't leave yet… not with so many questions plaguing my thoughts.

The three of us edged around the pile of tires, trying as best as we could (the two of us with noses, at least) to not breathe in the poison fumes from the pile of burning rubber. When we were clear of the tires, we were just greeted with another horror show. We were on the main street, and the building that must have been the town hall was at the end of the road… but the road to the town hall was lined with dozens of decapitated heads on spikes. Not only that, but what looked like the tops of telephone poles that had been cut down and planted in the ground like crosses also lined the way; each cross (there were little over half a dozen that I could see) had a body tied to it. The road was stained various shades of red and black from the pools of blood that were drying on the asphalt in the baking desert sun.

None of us could find the words to say anything.

Cautiously, I made my way towards one of the nearest crosses, trying not to look at any of the decapitated heads; it was a ridiculous notion, but it felt like their dead eyes were following my every move and it creeped the hell out of me. The body tied to the cross was limp and smelled positively rank. A few flies buzzed around the air. Like the crazy guy who we met when we first entered the town, he was also dressed like a Powder Ganger.

I leaned in to get a look at his face – and immediately jumped back when his head shot up and he gasped for air.

"Holy shit!" I heard Cass yell. "He's still alive?"

The Powder Ganger tied to the cross twitched weakly, and held his head up just enough to look at me. His whole body shook.

"K… kill… me…" I heard him say, barely above a whisper. His head fell, and his whole body went limp again. I did my best to regain my composure. But then I saw his wrists.

"Should… shouldn't we… I dunno… cut him down or something?" Cass asked.

"He's already dead," I heard myself say. I pointed at his wrists. He wasn't just tied to the cross – what could only be described as railroad spikes were driven through each of his wrists, nailing him to the cross. I looked around and realized it was the same with every single one of the people on these crosses. And it was just… people. Men. Women. There was even a boy – he couldn't be more than 13 or 14, I thought to myself.

Before I could ask myself what kind of a monster would do something like this, I got my answer as a voice rang out like gunfire through the silence.

"Magnificent, isn't it?"

In a flash, I had Roscoe pointed in the direction of the voice, ready to fire. I heard Cass ready her shotgun next to me, and I even heard the music that I'd come to associate with ED-E priming its laser to fire.

The speaker was standing at the top of the stairs that led into the town hall. The town hall itself was adorned with flags, I noticed, that were flying from open windows; crimson flags, the color of fresh blood, with a golden bull in the center. The speaker was flanked by a pair of dogs, and surrounded by half a dozen people, all carrying weapons; some were carrying spears or crude machetes, but the closest to the man speaking had rifles. They were all dressed in reds and blacks, and their armor looked like sports equipment that I remembered seeing from a book I'd read in my youth. They all wore what could only be described as leather skirts, and leather sandals.

The speaker walked out from beneath the shadow of the building toward me, and I could finally get a better look at him. He wore sports equipment like the rest, but it looked like it was reinforced better somehow. A short, tattered red cape fluttered behind him as he moved. On his head, he wore the top half of a wolf head, fur and all, like a hood. His eyes were obscured behind a pair of dark goggles. His left hand rested on the hilt of a sword that looked of a much higher quality than the crude machetes the others carried. His right hand was raised, and he was wagging a finger at me, a twisted smirk across his face.

"Ah-ah-ah," he said coldly, with an odd sort of refinement in his voice that didn't sound local at all. "There is no need for that now, is there? My forces outnumber you and your compatriots ten to one," He stopped about 15 feet from me, and spread his hands, gesturing to the sky. I looked up out of the corner of my eye, and realized that every roof had at least two more soldiers like the ones on the ground, with rifles pointed right at us. He continued. "But if you lower your weapons, you will have no need to worry. I won't have you set upon, and lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates."

I paused, not doing anything for a few seconds, weighing my options. Then I pointed Roscoe up, towards the sky, raising my hands.

"The fuck are you doing?" Cass hissed at me under her breath.

"I don't want to get shot," again, I added mentally. "And I don't want you to get shot either. Lower your shotgun." I didn't suggest she go back to the car, because of what she'd said earlier. She didn't move. "Ghost told me not to get killed, and that goes for you, too. So, please, lower your shotgun." Eventually, she relented, and grabbed the middle of her shotgun, holding it in the air. I turned to the robot.

"ED-E, wait by the car." I really didn't want the robot to start shooting right now, and get the lot of us killed. The flying metal ball beeped defiantly. "NOW!" I practically shouted. It faltered, and then floated away.

"It's useful that you happened by," the man wearing the wolf head spoke up again. "I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton. To memorize every detail. To see the horrors that we have inflicted on this den of debased corruption… and then, when you move on? I want you to teach the lessons that Caesar's Legion taught here." The way he said Caesar caught my attention. Everyone I'd met who spoke of Caesar's Legion pronounced Caesar with a soft "c" so it sounded like "see-zer." But he said the name with a hard "c" so it sounded more like "kay-zar."

Odd thing to notice while being held at gunpoint, I know. But my mind does that sometimes.

"So… who are you?" I asked, trying to stall for time while I thought of a way out of this.

"I am Vulpes Inculta, commander of the mighty Caesar's Frumentarii. We are those which strike from the shadows, chilling the black hearts of Caesar's enemies… and we are those who teach deadly lessons to all who would stand against the might of Caesar's Legion." Every word he spoke chilled me to the bone, partly because he didn't raise his voice, but mostly because I could just tell… this was a man who enjoyed his work.

"What 'lessons' did you teach here?" He laughed a soft, wicked laugh when I asked him, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He tilted his head, as if lost in thought.

"Where to begin? That they are weak, and we are strong? This much was known already. But the depths of their moral sickness, their… dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson. Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers…" he paused for a moment, as if disgusted with what he was about to say, but then continued. "… men of the Legion such as myself – the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when the trap was sprung did they realize that they were caught inside it, too.

"Everyone was captured, and herded into the center of town like the sheep they were. I recounted for them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty." He smiled wickedly, looking out at the figures hung on crosses. "I told them that when Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished… but the others are made to watch. And that was when I announced the lottery. Each clutched his ticket, hoping it would set him free. Each did nothing, even when… 'loved ones' were dragged away to be killed."

"You…" My eyes fell on the child that I'd seen before, nailed to the cross. "These people… you killed women – children! You slaughtered innocent civilians… just to prove a point?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"HAH!" He let out a single bellowing laugh, completely at odds with how he normally spoke. "Innocent? Hardly. Cowardly, perhaps. They outnumbered us greatly, yet not once did they try to resist. They stood and watched as their fellows were butchered, crucified, and burned, one by one. Each stood idle as the leader himself was burned alive on a pile of tires. Each among them hoped their turn would not come. Each cared only for himself."

My insides were burning with rage, but I just kept looking at the Legionaries on the rooftops, their rifles still pointed at the both of us. I might be able to kill Inculta with help from VATS, but there was no way Cass or I would survive the retaliation. The man responsible for this slaughter was right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything.

"If you feel so strongly about it, by all means, attack us, and soon you won't feel a thing. But I know you will make the right choice… so I will bid you 'Vale'," he turned away from me. "Until we meet again…"

He walked away, and as he did so the air around him crackled with ozone and electricity. His whole body shimmered, and then seemed to just disappear into thin air. The other Legionaries disappeared as well, and even the wolves who had been sitting at the top of the town hall steps ran off. I recognized how he'd disappeared – he must have used a Stealth Boy; pre war tech that turned the user practically invisible.

Cass and I just stood in the center of town, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The silence was deafening, but nothing happened. The only sound came from the pile of tires behind us. After a minute or two, we cautiously made out way out of town, and back to the car.

* * *

"Legion this far West?" Ghost asked me, a tone of incredulity in her voice. "You're fucking kidding me!"

"No, I'm not. It was Caesar's Legion. I know what I saw, and I know who I talked to."

"That's not outside the border, they're moving in – and fast. Nipton wasn't the most friendly town, but…" she paused, as if she had just noticed something I'd said. "Wait, talked to? Who did you talk to?"

"The man responsible – he called himself Vulpes Inculta. He had a small army of Legionaries, and held me and Cass at gunpoint while he told me why he did what he did. I wanted to shoot him right there, but there was no way out, and I didn't want Cass on my conscience." Ghost looked worried, even behind her mirrored sunglasses.

"I've heard of Inculta. He's supposedly leader of Caesar's spies and assassins. There were stories about him, from the first assault on Hoover Dam… whole companies of troops slaughtered in the night while they slept. As far as I know, nobody outside of the Legion has ever seen him and lived."

"He left me alive because he wanted me to send a message. He wanted me to tell people about what happened." She nodded, grimly

"All right… thanks for checking on that, and getting back here so quickly. Wish it put my mind at ease, but now I'm more on edge than ever."

"Did you have friends there?"

"In Nipton? Hell no. Town was a shithole, just asking to be burned… Just not by Legion. Nobody deserves that. Not even raiders." She paused and thought for a moment. "Maybe this'll be the push that gets us off our collective asses here so we can go hunting. Fucking Mojave's going to hell, and all I can do is sit here and watch. Either way, thanks for checking on that. Even if it was bad news."

Cass leaned against my car as I walked away from the barracks. ED-E floated in the air, just behind her.

"Y'know…" she said, looking at the big metal monument. "I didn't think I'd be back here so soon. It's only been, what? An hour? Maybe?"

"Don't worry, we're leaving," I said, tossing her a plastic bag filled with caps. "Here."

"What's this?"

"Your share," I said, getting in the driver side.

Cass looked at the bag of caps – which was not an inconsiderable amount – and looked back at me with a smirk as she got into the car.

"If this kind of money is what I can expect, I think I'm gonna like traveling with you."


	6. Chapter 5: Highway

**Chapter 5: Highway**

* * *

_That was Johnny Bond and his Red River Valley Boys with a little number called Stars of the Midnight Range. This is Radio New Vegas, and have I got news for you. I tried to measure my charisma on a Vit-O-Matic Vigor Tester once. The machine burst into flames. Just kidding, folks. I'll have some real news for you at the top of the hour, but right now I have more music for all my lovely listeners out there. In New Vegas, we know the pain that numbers can bring us. Well, so does Guy Mitchell, who's got Heartaches by the Number._

* * *

For a long while, neither of us spoke. We just sat in my Corvega in silence, ED-E flying nearby (and occasionally peeling off to take potshots at radscorpions). The ride this time around was a bit rougher than before, since I wasn't sticking to the road. I thought it would probably be a good idea to give Nipton a wide berth the second time around, so I was doing a bit of off-roading. It was times like this, I was glad I'd gotten the Corvega lifted and had the reinforced suspension put in during my last trip to Sac-Town. To keep us on course, I was using my Pip Boy's map function. Yeah, it was a bit awkward, holding my arm so I could use the steering wheel and see the map at the same time, but I managed.

I can't speak for Cass, but I was silent because I was still fuming on the inside about what I'd seen at Nipton. I was trying to put it out of my mind. I had other, more important, more immediate things to do, like finding the man who shot me, and left me for dead. I could actually do something about that. I couldn't do anything about the Legion, even if I wanted to. It was just too huge; it was an army, and I wasn't prepared to put my ass on the line for any causes right now… not unless that cause was my personal quest.

Even so, what they had done to the people of Nipton… I just couldn't get the image of that boy, nailed to a cross, out of my head. I didn't even know his name. I never would. And it just got under my skin.

"So…" Cass finally spoke up. "Novac, huh?" It took me a few seconds to even realize she was talking to me.

"Wait, what?"

"Well, back at the outpost cantina, y'said you were headin' to Novac." She took a drink from her flask. "Call me curious, but… why? That's a whole lotta nothin' out there, an' it's awful close to Legion territory. So what's in Novac?"

"Do you really want to know?" I asked her, my eyes locked on the horizon in front of me.

"Well, I did ask."

"I'm looking for the man who shot me." There was a very long pause.

"The man who shot you?"

"Twice. In the head." I turned to look at her, pointing at the scar on my temple and the scar on my cheek. She was just staring back at me, a look of disbelief on her face.

"You got shot in the head, twice…" She spoke slowly and her voice was flat, almost like she was having trouble processing this information. "and… you got better." I nodded… though, truth be told, if I hadn't lived it I would probably have trouble believing it myself.

"I got patched up by this doctor in Goodsprings. Even so, I was in a coma for about a week."

"Two shots in th' head without an Auto-Doc is still a whole helluva lot of patchin'. I hope you thanked him properly." She said, chuckling weakly and taking another drink from her flask. I thought about it, and remembered how Doc Mitchell had mentioned he'd gotten 'more than enough caps' to cover the operation and care from Victor. "So, who is this snake, put bullets in yer head? He have cause, or…?"

"I was on my way to Vegas, to deliver a package. He and a couple of thugs ambushed me, beat the shit out of me, took the package I was carrying, shot me in the head, and buried me in a shallow grave. I woke up in Goodsprings about a week later."

"Fuck. That's a helluva story." She brought the flask to mouth, but stopped just short of taking another drink. She shook her head. "Man, robbin' a courier… that's just low. I mean, I know some fuckin' ruthless bastards, but you don't fuck with the one who brings you your mail. I mean, that's like basic Caravan Code – you don't screw with your supply lines. Any family or group he's with is gonna get a black eye for it, one way or 'nother."

I nodded, turning my attention back to the horizon. ED-E was zooming around the car, flying rings around it. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was showing off. Cass took another drink, and continued.

"Hope this shithead knows what he's in for… from the both of us." That gave me pause.

"Both of us?"

"Yup. Someone attacks one of us, they attack all of us. That's Caravan Code, an' as far as I'm concerned, couriers apply as well. So you damn right I'm gonna help you teach this fucker some manners. He got a name?"

"You know, I didn't get the chance to ask, and he didn't introduce himself," I said, thinking. "He wore a bad suit, though."

"Bad suit?" Cass asked, finishing off her flask. She pulled a bottle of whiskey out of nowhere, and started refilling it. "What kinda bad suit?"

"Black and white checkered jacket. Tacky as hell." She shrugged.

"Well, if assholes had taste, we'd all be feastin' on shit." I started laughing. I couldn't help myself; that just cracked me up. She even joined in, and when the laughs finally died down, she continued. "Still… suit means money. And suits stand out, 'specially in the Mojave. Could be Vegas, but he could be at one of the larger towns 'round here, too." I nodded, agreeing.

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. The last tip I got said he was heading to Novac, though. I'm not holding out hope that's where he is… but if nothing else, I'll find something there to show me where to go next."

"Don't you worry," she said, nodding. "We'll sort this asshole out. Rattle his cage a little."

"I'm gonna do more than rattle his cage," I said, grimly. "When I catch up to him, I'm putting two in his head as payment, see how he likes it."

"I hear ya," she said. "I get the chance, he'll get a couple rounds 'o buckshot in his ass."

"Works for me. We'll call it interest." I said with a grin. She nodded, and took yet another drink from her flask. At that, I couldn't stay silent about the drinking any longer: "Ok, I gotta ask, how are you not dead?"

"… what?" She looked confused.

"Well, that **is** whiskey you're drinking, right?"

"Damn right it is! Whiskey's my drink o' choice!" she beamed proudly.

"Is it now?"

"Well…" she paused, looking thoughtful. "Not sure if I chose it, or it chose me. Dad ran a bar, a long time ago. It was a labor of love, Mom said. Didn't really sound like it made her happy. Still, I'm guessin' I got some o' Dad's love o' whiskey in me, 'cause the burn suits me just fine." As if to punctuate the thought, she took another drink from her flask, letting out a long, satisfied sigh when she finished. "People used to call me Whiskey Rose, back West… 'fore I punched 'nuff people. So now they say it, but quiet 'n when I'm not around."

"Whiskey Rose?" I braced myself, fully expecting her to sock me in the shoulder, but she just continued.

"Yeah, on account of my name… an' the blossoms on my cheeks when I drink too much," She laughed, a smile spreading across her face. "S'why I don't even like bein' called Rose. Won most o' those fights, too. Can take a helluva punch an' give it right back when I've gotta bottle in me. See, s'all in how ya drink it, y'know? There's a trick to it… I'll show you how s'done, if you want." She waved the half-full bottle of whiskey in my general direction; I declined, pushing it back towards her.

"Maybe when we get to Novac."

"Suits me fine. Though I don't think they even have a bar in that town…"

"You don't need a bar to drink, do you?" Judging by how much she'd already drunk in my car, I already knew the answer.

"Not really, but I gotta buy th' whiskey somewhere, right? There's usually a bar in ev'ry stop along th' road, though. Helps me sleep. Well… not really, but s'what I keep tellin' myself. Sometimes, I have t'brew it myself, if I'm too far from a bar, or I've run out. Not quality, but I'm for anything that takes th' edge off th' day."

"Wait, you can make moonshine?" I asked. My Pip Boy beeped at me, and it informed me that we were getting close to Highway 95.

"Well yeah, what else y'gonna do with an empty bottle? Wait for it to refill itself?"

"Fair point," I said, shrugging.

"Tell ya what – you get me some ingredients, an empty bottle, a little time, an' I'll keep us stocked."

"Alright, sounds good. What do you need?"

"Some maize, a couple mutfruits, a little yeast," she took a drink from her flask, and continued. "… and a fission battery."

"…what."

"Ya heard me," she said with a smirk. "I don't actually put it in th' brew, 'fore you ask. You hook up that nuclear battery to th' bottle just right, it'll ferment th' yeast in a few minutes like ya been distillin' th' batch fer six months."

"H-uh. Your dad teach you that trick?"

"Pfft," she snorted. "Nah. Only thing I ever got from him was this." I glanced at her, and she held up the diamond shaped pendant around her neck.

"You know, I've never seen a pendant like that before. What is it?"

"Gift from my old man, like I said. Gave it to me when he gave me my name – Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Mom said he got the name outta some Old World book 'bout dirt pilgrims, or somethin'. Sounds sweet, I guess, but I prefer my last name Cassidy. Anyway, pendant's a little rose. Originally thought it was one of Mom's tribal necklaces, but when I asked her, she said no, came from my old man."

"Wait, tribal necklace?"

"Y'know, like one of the tribes from the East? We got 'em out West, too. NCR's herdin' 'em up, though. Domesticatin' 'em. Mom was from East of th' Colorado. Not sure what tribe. Was before the time Caesar started roundin' 'em up, an' made 'em Legion. She walked a helluva way till she crossed paths with my Dad, 'an he convinced her to stop walkin'. An' lucky for me, he was a horny ol' bastard."

"Uh…" I didn't quite know what to say to that. "That's… one way to put it. Did you know him at all?" She shrugged.

"Not really. He ended up walkin' East one day when I was young, an' never came back. Mom died waitin' for him, an' she had me to raise. She was sick more often than not, but held off dyin' till I was old 'nuff to be gettin' in trouble with boys. As fer Dad… I figure he just got himself lost or dead. It happens. I'm not all boo-hoo 'bout it, so save yer glass fer someone who's cryin'."

"Any idea why he went East?"

"Not a clue. When he left, I was too in my crib t'understand why, an' 'round th' time Mom passed, I was too into my teens t'listen. Got his name, got this pendant, an' that's 'bout it. So what 'bout you?"

"What about me?" I asked, confused.

"Well, hell, here I am goin' on an' on 'bout my folks, an' my past, an' all that happy horseshit. What 'bout you, y'got family somewheres?"

"I dunno," I said honestly. "Never met 'em." She was silent for a long while.

"You've never met your parents?" She asked. I shook my head.

"Nope. I don't even know where I was born. I grew up on the back of a brahmin caravan that went all over the place. California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington… You name a place West of the Rockies, I've probably been there growing up."

"You ever ask about your parents?"

"Of course I did," I said, pausing as the car violently jerked one final time before driving back onto the (relatively) smooth tarmac of Highway 95. "But by the time I was old enough to think about asking, there weren't that many of the original caravaneers left – some had died, sure, but most had just joined other caravans. And the ones who were around, well, they all had different stories about where I was from. And a lot of the stories just didn't seem to match up with one another. Eventually, I just gave up wondering. I figured that if I wasn't supposed to find out, I wasn't going to find out. Like you said, it happens."

"So, why'd you become a courier?"

"Seemed like the thing to do, I guess. I tried settling down, once I was old enough to leave the caravan, and strike out on my own. Got myself a place in Shady Sands, tried my hand at a couple odd jobs here and there, and got myself in a fair bit of trouble, too. But staying in that one place for so long… Maybe it was because I grew up always on the move, but staying still just drove me buggy. That was…" I trailed off, trying to remember how long it had been. "12? 13 years ago? Maybe? Either way, I started moving and I haven't really stopped since."

"Sounds like me. My feet get antsy if I stay in one place too long, like the Outpost. Was drivin' me crazy, that feelin' of bein' trapped there. But with my caravan gone, who knows when I would'a left. So… thanks for that."

"Don't mention it. So… how'd you get started in the caravan business, anyway?"

"Started? Took to it like a fish to water…" she paused, considering her choice of words. "That is, if ya know what a fish is."

"I know what a fish is. Do **you** know what a fish is?" I asked with a smirk.

"Well…" she faltered, but tried to cover it by taking a drink. "Of course I do. It's this… slimy, scaled thing. Like a lakelurk, 'cept no legs or claws. Most times, that is. They're like… birds, 'cept they stay underwater, y'know?" I did my best to keep a straight face while she continued. "Anyway, I've seen pictures. One guy even had one above his bar in Redding. 'Cept it was made of Pre-War plastic. Used to say it could sing, but I figured he was on a Jet rush." When she said that, I couldn't help but laugh. "What? What's so funny?"

"You know, I think I've been to that bar. What was it, the Marmite Saloon or the Malamute Saloon or something?"

"Yeah, that's it! Malamute Saloon. Way I heard it, place was a whore house, like, 40 years ago, 'til th' NCR rolled in. Good drinks though, even if it was a bit pricey." I laughed at that, nodding. The car fell silent for a few minutes.

"So, what do you think of the NCR, anyway?" I asked. It was a stretch, sure, but I was just trying to keep up the conversation – kept my mind off Legion.

"NCR's my country, an' I support it. Anyone who says otherwise, I'll feed 'em my knee. I know which side of th' firin' line I'm on in the Mojave, just so y'know."

"There's a 'but' in there, isn't there?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "There is. NCR's my country, but I'm not some blind, flag-saluting, do-as-they-will NCR lover. They're family. An' let me tell you what family means t'me. Th' NCR's like a brother – like some dumbass younger brother, who knocked up th' pastor's daughter, can't hold a job, and his home-away's a fuckin' jail cell. Their compass is spinnin', all the time." I thought about that for a minute. Even though I never had a brother, that kind of made sense… in a weird sort of way.

"So… what are you saying? They lack direction?" She nodded, and continued.

"S'been like that for a long while, ever since Tandi died, but Kimball's been the worst. He tries t'put th'NCR's stake in ev'rythin' he sees. Nobody's dick is that long. Not even Long Dick Johnson, and he had a fuckin' long dick. Thus, the name."

"Yeah, I got that. Thanks."

"So Kimball tries to hold ont'a ev'rythin'. He can't, 'cause it's too big for th'NCR t'get their arms 'round. Can't guard the roads, can't put a line 'o troops 'round th' Mojave… s'just greed that makes Kimball even try."

"And everyone suffers for it."

"Aside from th' people in th' towns, it's th' soldiers suffer for it most. Ever seen NCR troops asked t'go after gangs at three-t'-one odds?"

"Yeah, I have. Pretty recent, too, down at Primm."

"That bear flag doesn't make 'em bulletproof," she said. "An' when those gangs were caused by NCR in th' first place, like th' Powder Gangers? Caesar on a crutch, don't even get me fuckin' started there."

"So, what's the alternative?" I asked, shrugging.

"Look, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want th' Brotherhood or th' Followers or th' Vegas families runnin' the Mojave. All 'o them're a differen't kinda fuck-up. NCR just has some… shapin' up t'do. Maybe Caesar kickin' 'em in the nuts is a nice wake-up call, is all I'm sayin'. I just wish Caesar would kick th' heads of NCR, not th' feet. I've fucked a soldier in my time – they don't need t'get fucked by their orders."

"After seeing what they did to Nipton… I wouldn't even wish Legion on the man who shot me." I thought about that for a minute, then added: "Maybe."

"Yeah… s'kinda th' major downside to that whole idea. I mean, Mojave's sufferin' now… imagine what it'd be like with Legion ev'rywhere."

"I'm trying not to."

"I don't trade caps r'supply anyone who keeps slaves, an' treats women like brahmin in those… 'camps' of theirs…" She trailed off for a moment, and horrible images flooded into my head. Until Nipton, I'd never really heard much about Caesars Legion, except that it was this big army of slaves across the Colorado; a nebulous force of evil and spookiness that I always thought was just NCR propaganda. Now I was starting to wonder just how many of those stories I'd heard were true. "But there are some caravans that deal with 'em."

"I didn't think Legion dealt with any caravans at all," I said, thinking about some of the anti-Legion posters in the outpost.

"Yeah, they're out there. An' as much as it pains me to say it, any caravan marked by Legion is safe as houses. They guard their roads, their supply lines – even Fiends think twice 'fore going after any trader with a red bull flag. If Kimball took th' same stand and made sure NCR committed patrols to th' roads, then I think that'd solve a lot o' their problems right there. But he doesn't, so they don't. Caravans get butchered in th' Mojave all th' time, like mine. And so fuckin' close to Vegas, you could see it from th' wall."

"Sounds to me like it's not so much Kimball, but the NCR as a whole."

"Eh. NCR tries, I guess," she said with a shrug, taking another sip from her flask. "S'just that tryin' don't mean a good goddamn when you're payin' yer respects to th' dead. And Legion, from what I've heard, they don't do th' 'stop tolls' on th' roads or in th' outposts like some NCR quartermasters do. You're lucky if y'turn a profit. Sometimes, if some new officer gets assigned a route, fees just get worse."

"I'd much rather take the fees than get put on a cross." I said. "Or burned on a pile of tires. Or have my head cut off."

"Know what I want? I want Kimball t'make good on his campaign promises, an get NCR to protect th' roads like Legion does. Much as I hate the Legion – an' trust me, I'd bet you any money I hate th' Legion s'much as you – caravan life would be a hell of a lot easier… as long as those companies were run by men. An' that's the biggest issue I see. It's a shame, but I think there's people in th' NCR who feel more strongly 'bout this than I do. An' I feel pretty fuckin' strong about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Some caravans deal with Legion now 'cause of th' security. If towns could get th' same protection? A lot more tempting than you'd think. Bunch o' people would be willin' t'side with th' Legion t'not have to worry about Fiends or Boomers or Great Khan attacks. S'not hard for some folks to sell freedom when th' alternative is worse…"

"Especially if being with NCR is going to get you on a Legion cross," I said, finishing her thought. She nodded, grimly.

"S'like, no matter what we do, we're gonna get fucked. Legion'll crucify yer ass, an' NCR'll tax it out from under ya – and then Legion'll put you on a cross anyway fer yer trouble."

"Only if you stay in the Mojave," I said, trying to steer the subject away from the Legion. It was just making me madder. "Something tells me you and I aren't really the type to stick around here if things go pear-shaped."

"That's true. You said you've traveled a lot – so've I. Passed through places enough times people'd sometimes pay me some caps to take somethin' to the next town. That's kinda how my caravan got started. One day, it occurred to me I could scratch th' travelin' itch an' get paid for it. Cassidy Caravans just sort of… formed around me."

"So, how is the caravan life here?" She shrugged.

"Up 'till my caravan got burned, I liked it. I'm not one fer soft livin', or soft men, let me tell you. Otherwise, I wouldn't be talkin' t'you right now – on both counts." It took me a minute to parse what she'd said.

"Miss Cassidy… are you flirting with me?" I said, with a wry grin on my face, half joking. I had no idea what grinning was doing to the scar on my cheek; for the first time, I was kind of glad I hadn't shaved in a few days, since it probably hid the scars. Somewhat. She laughed… and then hit me really hard in my shoulder.

"Don't you be takin' that as anythin' more'n words. I know yer look. Met a dozen guys with that same look'n their eyes. You probably say all the right things, an' leave a trail 'o broken hearts behind you. Just so we're clear, nothin' – an I do mean nothin' – is ever gonna happen 'tween us. You'd best respect that. My point before? You know th' wasteland, an' it's a hard place, where only th' strong survive."

"You know, that's probably gonna bruise," I said, looking at my shoulder.

"Serves ya right, ya letch."

"Good hit though."

"No it wasn't. This is a good hit -"

WHACK.

* * *

Novac was a little community that had sprung up in the remains of a small, two story pre-war motel, at the intersection of Highway 95 and Highway 165. What the motel used to be called, nobody remembered. The letters on the sign had all fallen away, or rusted into nothing. The only thing left was what the townsfolk had taken for the name – the only five remaining letters of the "No Vacancy" sign.

The most prominent feature of the motel was not the sign, or the shanty town on the West side of the 95, or the abandoned gas station nearby; the most prominent feature of the town was the dinosaur. I think it was supposed to be a T-Rex or something – I'd seen something similar, years ago, at the radioactive Labre tar pits in the Boneyard. It wasn't quite as big as the NCR monument at the outpost, but it was still the first thing we saw as we approached in the Corvega. As we got closer, I could see that bits of its green scales were flaking off, revealing the metal framework underneath.

It wasn't quite night yet when I parked the car at the gas station, but it wasn't quite day either. The sun was just starting to set, and the sky was turning all shades of oranges and purples and reds and blues. ED-E buzzed around the car, a soft and happy sort of tune made out of random beeps and whirs coming from his speaker.

"So," Cass said to me, getting out of the car. "What's the plan?"

"Well…" I said, checking the time on my Pip Boy. "I figure, we can get a room and stay the night, and then I'll start asking people in the morning if they've seen a guy in an awful suit."

"We?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and staring at me, ice water in her gaze.

"Did I say we?" I said, as tonelessly as I could muster, despite my shoulder suddenly and inexplicably flaring up. "I meant you. You'll get the room, I'll stay in the car."

"I'm just givin' ya shit, ya know that right?" Cass said with a smirk.

"Still, I was probably gonna stay in the car anyway. Force of habit, you know." I said shrugging.

At that precise moment, something oddly familiar caught my ears. I perked my head up, trying to listen. Before I realized what was happening, a familiar squeaking sound, like a greased axle grinding along metal sounded from behind me, followed swiftly by an all too familiar mechanical cowboy voice.

"Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit, if it ain't my old friend from Goodsprings!" I heard Victor say to me. I turned around to see him roll to a stop a few feet away from me.

"Hello Victor," I said, eyeing the robot with suspicion. His screen flickered slighty as he wobbled in place.

"You know this bot?" Cass called out from behind me.

"Yeah," I said, turning to her. "This is Victor. He's the one that dug me out of that shallow grave. Victor, this is Cass."

"Howdy, ma'am." Victor said to Cass, making a motion that would've been like tipping his hat… if he'd actually had a hat on his head. Which he didn't.

"Uh… hi there." She said, waving weakly. She shot me a look that practically said "What the fuck is going on?" without actually saying anything.

"So, Vic, tell me… what are you doing all the way out here in Novac? This is quite a ways from Goodsprings." The robot's screen flickered again.

"Don't rightly know – I just got the notion to make my way up to New Vegas. Reckon I'll find out when I get there."

"Quite the coincidence, us meeting up like this," I didn't believe in coincidences, so I was trying to probe the robot for any answers I might be able to get.

"Seeing how this is the only road around, I'd be a sight more surprised if we didn't run into each other from time to time."

"You said the men that jumped me were heading this way, right?" It was a longshot, I know, but I thought maybe that would trip him up and get him to reveal something.

"No… don't believe I did." Victor said slowly, his screen flashing violently before shifting back into focus. "You might ask around – the Novac folk usually see anyone travelling this way."

"Hm." I knew something was off, but I couldn't figure out what. And talking with Victor… that was like talking to a very stubborn brick wall. Made out of titanium. "Well. I guess I'll see you around then, Vic?"

"Be seeing you!" Victor said. He turned, and rolled away before coming to rest at the Novac sign.

ED-E floated in the air beside me. He looked at Victor, then at me, then back at Victor, and then finally back at me, where he started beeping and buzzing something that sounded slightly obscene.

"You know, I really wish I could understand you."

Cass walked around the car, looking over at Victor as she approached. "So what th' fuck was that about?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I have a nasty feeling I'm gonna find out soon enough.


	7. Chapter 6: Boone

Chapter 6: Boone

* * *

_It's me again, Mr. New Vegas, reminding you that you're nobody 'til somebody loves you, and that somebody is me. I love you. It's that time again, ladies and gentlemen – time for me to put on my newsman fedora. Word out of Camp Golf is that many NCR Rangers can expect re-deployment in the near future. One anonymous soldier said it was part of a new strategy. Also, Caesar's Legion continues to fortify its position in Nelson, where it remains a constant concern for Camp Forlorn Hope and the nearby town of Novac. The preceding segment was sponsored by the Silver Rush: feel the rush of a warm laser in your hand. In New Vegas, sometimes you've got to feel just a little bit sad if you want to feel happy. Frank Sinatra knows this better than most, and all he asks for is One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)._

* * *

Cass and I walked into the lobby of the motel, and I was met with the overwhelming sense of "green." The wallpaper, peeling and cracked in places, was a pale green with a faded and barely visible floral pattern. The moldy and torn couch pressed up against the far wall was made out of dark green leather. The floor tiles were various shades of green, some light, some dark in no discernable pattern that I could really see. The lamp in the center of the slowly spinning fan on the ceiling was made out of green smoked glass. Tiny green dinosaur toys – miniatures of the giant dinosaur outside – littered nearly every surface in the room. Even the radio, crackling slightly but unmistakably tuned to Radio New Vegas and playing some Old World song, was green.

I continued to be overwhelmed by the color green when I got a good look at the woman sitting behind the front desk. Part of that was the lighting, I'll admit, but it was mostly the dark green dress she was wearing. She was middle-aged, with grey hair held up on the top of her head in a bun, and was surprisingly… large. She wasn't fat, just plump; the only thin part of her was her long thin nose, upon which was perched a pair of extremely large glasses, with thick lenses that made her half-opened, heavy lidded eyes look positively enormous. When we walked in, she turned from her magazine, looked up at me and smiled wide, with dimples in her cheeks the size of golf balls.

"Well, welcome to you," she said with the voice of a very tired, sweet old lady. "You look tired from the road. Why don't you relax a spell, let this fine town take care of you? Oh, but where are my manners? I got to thinking about making a good impression and plain forgot to tell you my name! I'm Jeannie May. I take care of folks here at the motel, long as they aren't trouble makers."

"Hey there," I said, reaching the front desk and finally getting a word in edgewise. "I'd like to rent a room." Somehow, she managed to smile even wider at that.

"Well, I think that's a splendid idea! I'll give you a good flat rate, and you can stay as long as you like. At least until the busy season comes. Does that sound good?" I nodded. "Alright, it'll be 14 caps a night," she said, pulling a key from a hook on the wall behind her. She placed it on the desk as I pulled out a stack of 20 bottlecaps; I kept them in groups of 20, to make it easier to count them out. "Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby side. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay better for you."

"Oh, it's not for me," I said, picking up the key and tossing it to Cass. She caught it in midair. "Go on and get settled. I'll catch up."

"Thanks. I owe ya," Cass said, strolling out of the lobby. I turned back the Jeannie May.

"Before I leave, I wanted to ask you a question."

"Of course. What can I help you with?"

"I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat. Have you seen anyone like that pass through here recently?" Her smile evaporated instantly, and her face screwed up, almost as if she suddenly smelled something foul.

"Well, he might've been wearing a fancy outfit, but he wasn't any sort of gentlemen to me. Had his nose stuck up so high in the air, you couldn't see it above the clouds. City folk, they always think they deserve better than what they got. He even insulted my motel – asked him to leave that very day. Those hoodlums he was with weren't much better, but they seemed to know Manny for some reason…"

"So where can I find this Manny?"

"He's one of the snipers that help protect the town. Your best bet to find him is up in the dinosaur's mouth."

* * *

The inside of the dinosaur was… not what I was expecting. I opened the door to a gift shop, and every single shelf on every wall was filled from side to side with those same tiny dinosaur toys I'd seen in the motel lobby. And the man who ran the little shop, Cliff, seemed oddly fixated with the things; I only asked him if it was alright if I went up the stairs to talk with the sniper, and somehow he managed to steer the conversation towards asking me if I wanted to buy one of the T-Rexes. I declined, and I heard him mutter something about how nobody ever wanted to buy the T-Rexes as I made my way up the stairs towards the sniper perch.

I slid the door open and immediately tensed up as I heard the unmistakable click of a pistol's hammer being cocked.

"Whoa, hey! Don't shoot!" I said, making sure my hands were in the air and away from Roscoe as the door continued to slide open. A revolver was pointed directly at me, but was quickly decocked and put away. The man was holding the revolver in one hand, and had a silenced, scoped hunting rifle in his other. He was huge; even without the red beret, I could've told you from his build that he was ex military. He had a heavy-set and clean shaven jaw, and I couldn't tell if it was just naturally wide or if he was chewing tobacco. He looked at me with a frown from behind a pair of sunglasses.

"Goddamnit!" he said, his voice gravelly, weary, and low. He turned back in his chair, and looked out through the dinosaur's mouth, towards the general direction of the Colorado river. "Don't sneak up on me like that. What do you want?" He spoke quickly and tersely, wasting no words on unnecessary pleasantries.

"I was told there was a sniper nest up here."

He turned slightly to look at me, appraising me with a scowl.

"I think you'd better leave."

"Hang on – are you Manny?" There was a very long pause.

"No." There was another pause, and then he added "You don't know who I am?"

"I'm looking for Manny, because I want to ask him some questions. But if you're not him, I guess I'll leave."

"Wait," the cold sniper said as I was turning to walk back out the door. "You just got into town, right? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet." I raised an eyebrow.

"Why not?"

"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger. That's a start."

"You only trust strangers?" I asked, confused.

"I said it was a start," he practically spat. "This town… nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore. I need the kind of help I can only get from an outsider." I thought about what he said, and I had to admit… there was a string of morbid curiosity in my brain that wanted to pursue this conversation. So I closed the door, and regarded him carefully.

"Ok then. What do you need?" I said. I figured, it couldn't hurt to at least listen to what he had to say.

"I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come. What route to take. And they only took Carla. Someone set it up. I don't know who."

"So you're trying to track down your wife?"

"My wife's dead," he said, forcefully. "I want the son of a bitch who sold her."

"You said she was taken by Legion. How do you know she's dead?" I asked. I thought it was a fair question, but he practically bit my head off with his response.

"I just know, all right?" He practically shouted, but lowered his voice and continued. "That's all you need to know."

"Alright, sorry. Ok, so, I find the person responsible. What would you want me to do when I find… whoever it is?"

"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm duty." He pointed down to a specific spot far enough away from the town to be obscured at ground level, but with a clear line of sight from his sniper perch. "I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest." I thought about what he was asking for a few minutes. He was on a quest for revenge, same as me. And even though I wasn't really all that concerned at the moment with fighting them, I didn't have any love for Legion, or the people who worked with them.

"Alright," I said finally. "I'll see what I can find out"

"Good," he said, nodding and removing his beret, revealing a buzzed, almost completely shaved head. "I'll make it worth your while. And one more thing," he said, handing me the beret. "We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know, or the Legion will be after me next." I nodded, understanding completely.

I took a look at the beret, turning it over in my hands. It was red, with a patch on the front of a bear skull with crossed rifles behind it. There was a slogan above and below the skull, that said "NCR 1st Recon" and "The last thing you never see."

"So what do I call you?" This was an annoying habit that I'd started to notice about NCR troopers – they refused to give me a name unless I asked.

"Boone."

* * *

I only spent 15 or 20 minutes asking around town before I realized that Carla, Boone's wife (I still had no idea if Boone was his last name or his first name), wasn't exactly the most popular person in town. A couple of people didn't know her, but the ones that did all pretty much had the same opinion: she was a bitch. She talked down to people, she'd spend most of her time sulking in her room, and she made sure everyone knew that she thought she deserved better than what Novac could offer. Of course, for all their complaints, nobody seemed to know anything about the disappearance. A few people didn't even realize she was gone.

Now, I know what you may be asking: "Sheason, how can you be sure they weren't just lying?" and that is a very good point. The only real explanation I can give is that I'm just good at reading people. It's something I've always been able to do, even as a kid. The way someone speaks, their body language, the movement of their eyes, how dilated their pupils are, and countless other clues: I'm just able to pick up on these things.

There were two people I questioned, however, that sent up red flags: the first was Jeannie May. I caught her as she was closing up the motel front desk. As soon as I asked about Boone's wife, she tensed up almost imperceptibly for half a second, but then it disappeared, replaced with a sort of melancholy sadness.

"How should I put it?" she said finally. "I guess you could say she was kind of like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She never did take to living here. She liked the big lights and fast living of New Vegas. I got the feeling she was trying to get Boone to leave with her, but I guess she got tired of waiting."

She was lying about something, I could tell. But the thing that really caught my attention, as I watched her walking away towards one of the houses across the 95, was something very simple: of all the people I'd asked around town, she was the only one who offered an explanation for Carla's disappearance.

The other person that sent up a red flag (but for a very different reason) was this crazy old man wandering around town; I bumped into him accidentally as I turned a corner. He was wearing tatty brown rags, and his grey hair and unshaven beard were messy and unkempt. When I turned the corner, he stared at me intensely, his eyes wide and completely fixed on me.

"Who sent you?!" he practically yelled. He sounded like he'd smoked a carton of cigarettes a day. "I ain't talkin'! They tried to get me to talk before, but I didn't say nothin', and I don't aim to now, by gum!" I was afraid he might try and stab me if I made any sudden movements or upset him, so I kept my distance and decided to humor him.

"Who tried to make you talk?" I asked, and he immediately looked defeated.

"Confound it, No-bark, you done it again. You let on that you know things. Now they'll never let you be. They'll come for you in the night like they did for that lady."

"Wait, what?" I asked. "Are you talking about Boone's wife?" He nodded.

"Seen it all," he said, pointing at his eyes with both fingers. "Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Thought one might've gone in the lobby, too, for a spell. Could be that person went in to get something. Or use the john, maybe. Mighty interesting either way, you ask me," he said, stroking his beard. "I thought it was cannibals, come to eat us all for sure, so I kept out of sight. But now I know better!"

"So… who was it, if it wasn't cannibals?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"Molerat men! Come up from the Underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances! They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for wigs, it's said, being either bald or balding themselves!"

"Uh… that's… interesting."

"If anyone asks, we never spoke." And with that, he wandered off, muttering to himself something about the Chupacabra that I couldn't quite hear.

I didn't know what to think. This guy, No-bark, was an obvious crackpot… but for some reason, it felt like there might have been a nugget of truth in what he said. Part of that was the fact that the first part of his story – people coming in the middle of the night to take Carla – actually matched up with what Boone had told me. Add in the fact that Jeannie May was lying about something, and that he mentioned someone had gone into the lobby before leaving…

I decided to take a look in the lobby, to see what I could find.

* * *

I checked my Pip Boy's clock – it was close to 11 pm by the time I made my way back to the lobby. The town of Novac was silent except for the chirping of crickets. No one was around. And for what I was about to do, that was a very good thing. I tried the door, but it wouldn't budge. I looked around again, double checking that no one was around. I knelt down, taking a look at the lock. It was pretty simple. I pulled out my torsion wrench and a hook pick, and set to work.

This may seem odd that I would know how to pick a lock, but you need to understand something – if you want to thrive out in the wasteland, rather than simply survive, one of the skills you need to learn is lockpicking. I'd learned the basics of it when I lived in Shady Sands for that short period, and it had come in handy more times than I could count over the years. The most useful that skill had been, by far, was the one time I'd been captured by raiders just outside Klamath. Ever since then, I always kept a torsion wrench and a few various tumbler picks on me, just in case. In a pinch, I could use a screwdriver and some bobby pins, but that wasn't ideal.

The door opened with a satisfying click.

I turned on the light, and the interior was just as green as I'd remembered it. I had no idea what I was looking for, honestly. But I decided to start with the floor safe behind the front desk counter. There were other places that were probably less obvious around the room that someone who was actually trying to hide something would use, sure. But I started with the safe just to be thorough, not actually expecting to find anything.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I cracked the safe and found a slip of paper bearing a red bull stamp. With a mounting sense of unease and dread, I unfolded it, and read:

_We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said, Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document. _

_Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus et al._

_Administrators of M. Lichinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulato_

I knelt there in stunned silence for a few minutes, just reading the note over and over again. I felt ill.

* * *

I banged on the door to Jeannie May's house hard enough to make sure she'd hear it, even if she was asleep. About a minute later, she opened the door, rubbing her eyes. She was wearing a robe, and didn't have her glasses. She blinked wearily and tried to focus on me. When she realized who it was, she looked concerned.

"Well, hello…" she said, slightly perplexed. "It's awful late to be coming around here for a chat – is everything all right? Is something the matter?"

"Oh, everything is all right," I said, putting on my best poker face. "But there's something I think you need to see."

* * *

I made sure I didn't have any bits of Jeannie May's head on me as I walked back into town. When I'd gotten her into position, I'd barely put the beret on when the back of her head simply exploded. She collapsed, Boone's bullet killing her instantly.

There was still no one around town – I didn't even see Victor anywhere – as I made my way up the stairs and into the dinosaur. As I reached for the door to the dinosaur's mouth, I hesitated, and rapped on the door instead.

"Who is it?" I heard Boone ask.

"It's Sheason." The door opened with a click.

"That's it then," he said as the door closed behind me. "How did you know?"

"I found this," I handed him the bill of sale, and gave him his beret back. He took a look at it, and the scowling expression on his face remained unchanged. He crumpled the letter in his hands, and tossed it onto the floor.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's just like them to keep paperwork." He handed me a bag of bottlecaps. "Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here." A thought crossed my mind.

"Wait, do you think anyone's going to connect you to that bitch with the hole in her head? You're not an outlaw now, are you?"

"No," he said simply. "People die out there. Often enough that no one worries about blame. They're too anxious to forget it happened in the first place, I guess. Besides," For the first time since meeting him, I saw him smirk. "I was on break when it happened."

"So, what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," he gazed out at the desert. "I won't be staying, I know that. Don't see much point in anything right now, except hunting legionaries."

"What, all by yourself?"

"Yeah," he said simply.

"You're a sniper though, right? Don't snipers work in pairs – one sniper, one spotter?" I asked, honestly not really sure. I'd seen something about that in an old holotape movie about snipers in the Old World, but I didn't know if that was accurate or not.

"Yeah. Normally. But if I'm going to hunt Legion, I'll do it alone. What about you?"

"What about me?" The question caught me a bit off guard.

"You're hunting for someone, I can tell. It's why you helped me." That… was surprisingly perceptive. I wouldn't have called that.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm looking for the man who shot me. A guy in a checkered coat, travelling with some Great Khans. Have you seen him?"

"No. Sorry. Talk to Manny. He works days."

* * *

I knocked on the door to Cass' room. I was still emotionally drained from the discovery in the motel lobby, and somehow watching the bitch responsible for selling a woman and her unborn child into slavery getting her head blown off did nothing to make me feel better. So I decided there was only one thing I could do.

When Cass opened the door, it looked like she'd been drinking… but that wasn't really a change, she always looked like she was drinking. Her suede jacket had been discarded somewhere, as had her cowboy hat; her red hair fell down loose around her face and down her back. She leaned against the doorframe, a half finished bottle of whiskey in hand.

"Hey, Shea," she said with a smile. "What's up?"

"I need a drink," pointing at the bottle. "May I?"

"Sure," she said, putting the bottle in my hand. I tipped my head back, and poured the rest of the bottle down my throat. It burned in the best possible way.

"Thanks," I told her, placing the empty bottle back in her hand, and walking down the motel stairs, back to my car.


	8. Chapter 7: The Bright Brotherhood

**Chapter 7: The Bright Brotherhood**

* * *

_Welcome back to the program. This is Mr. New Vegas, and I hope I'm not coming on too strong. More news is coming at you right now. Rumors persist about a super mutant refuge nestled high in the ski lodge at the peak of Mount Charleston to the northwest. If you should find it, do not, repeat, DO NOT belittle a super mutant for taking the bunny slope. Also, the Black Mountain radio signal is back after a long absence. Listeners say the new programming is, quote, less for outcasts, more for weirdoes. This section of the program was brought to you by Gomorrah: It'll be our secret. Got some more Sinatra coming up, asking you to Come Fly With Me._

* * *

"Well, let's try this again." I said to myself, as I climbed up the stairs to the dinosaur-mouth sniper perch. I knocked on the door, and heard an unfamiliar voice from inside tell me to come in.

The first thing I noticed was the red beret – for half a second, I thought Boone was still here, and my ears were playing tricks on me. When he turned to look at me, the thing that caught my attention was his facial hair; the last time I saw a handlebar moustache that impressive was when I'd been shot. This wasn't the same man though – this guy looked more hispanic than anything else. Plus, while it was similar, he wasn't wearing Great Khan colors; just a sleeveless leather vest over a red long sleeved shirt, and an ammo belt bandolier draped across his chest.

"What's goin' on man?" he said.

"You Manny?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "What can I do for ya?"

"I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat. I was told you could help me find him. Know him?"

"Sure, I know him," he said after pausing for a minute, as if he wasn't sure if he should answer. "What do you want with him?"

"Let's just say he has something of mine, and I want it back" I said. Manny raised an eyebrow.

"You talkin' about that chip?" I nodded, and he continued, shaking his head. "Man, I don't think he's giving it up."

"Maybe not. But do you know where I can find him, anyway?"

"Yeah… I think I can help," he said with a smile. "But I got problems of my own. You do something for me, and I can tell you where you can find him."

I rubbed my temples, massaging the scar on the side of my head. Great, I thought to myself, just what I need – another diversion. At this rate, I'll never catch up to him. But this was my only really solid lead. With any luck, whatever he had in mind wouldn't take too long or be too out of the way.

"Fine," I sighed, resignation in my voice. "What do you need?"

"This town, Novac? It's home for me now. I want that to be for good. I really like it here… and I've left too many homes behind. But the only resource the people around here have is junk. Without that, there wouldn't be anything people could trade. They'd all have to leave."

"Not to interrupt, but I assume there's a point to all this?" I wasn't really all that interested in the why – just tell me what you want done so I can go and get it done, I thought to myself.

"I'm getting to it. See, most of the junk comes from the old rocket test site up the road. It's sort of hidden in the Black Mountain foothills just west of here. But a few days ago, a bunch of ghouls showed up and took it over. Nobody wants to even get close anymore."

"If it's so important," I said with a shrug "why don't you just go up there and deal with it?"

"Trust me, if I could, I would." He said almost defensively. He pointed at his beret. "See this? Means I was in 1st Recon, same as Boone. It's shorthand for badass. I could clear out the place myself, but it would still take me the better part of a day, and I can't do that because I have to watch the road. As annoying as the ghouls are, they're not wandering, but Caesars Legion? They've been taking territory just east of here. Last I heard, they took Nelson. If we… if I let our guard down, even for a minute, they might attack. All it takes for the Legion is for them to sense weakness."

"Ok. So you want me to get rid of the ghouls. What kind of ghouls are we talking about?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, sounding confused.

"Well, are these a pack of feral ghouls that have wandered in, thinking there might be meat, or are these just ghouls who are squatting in an abandoned building, and I can maybe talk to and convince them to leave the place?"

"I don't know. I haven't actually been up there. I think its just ferals though, since everyone keeps talkin' about zombies. Personally, it doesn't matter to me what you do. As long as the ghouls are out of there, and people can go back to scavenging, that's good enough for me."

"Alright. I'll think about it," I said, despite having already made up my mind. "But if I do this, I expect you to tell me what I want to know."

"Thanks man," he said as I started to walk out the door. "It'd mean a lot to me."

* * *

"Ok, explain t'me again why we're doin' this?" Cass said as she walked beside me. ED-E was floating next to me on the other side as the three of us made our way up the road towards the rocket site.

"Well, I'm going up there to clear out some ghouls. I do this favor for Manny, he tells me what I need to know. Simple enough trade, just with a verbal contract and no caps involved."

"Well yeah, that's what I mean - why are we goin' through all this trouble? If he knows who yer lookin' for an' where he is, why don' ya just beat it out of him?" I had to stifle a snicker.

"I think maybe you've seen too many Pre-War holotapes. For one, beating a confession out of someone doesn't actually work. For two, he's ex 1st recon; he'd probably beat the shit out of me, rather than the other way around if I tried anything like that. And for three, I don't actually know why you keep saying 'we' about all this. When I knocked on your door to tell you where I was going, I didn't think you'd want to follow."

"I'm bored, an' got nothin' else better t'do," she said with a shrug. "B'sides, y'said th' people in Novac come up here to scavenge stuff. It's been a couple years, but I figure, couldn't hurt t'do a bit of honest 'prospecting.' With all that's happened, I could use th' money."

"So that's what the duffel bag is for," I said, pointing to the empty sack she had slung across her shoulder. She nodded with a grin.

"Gotta carry th'haul back somehow."

At that moment, ED-E started to beep excitedly. I was about to ask what was up, when the beeping was replaced by the familiar bugle music. I took a look at my Pip Boy's compass – and immediately pulled Roscoe out of its holster.

"What's goin' on?" Cass asked. I showed her the compass: there was a mass of red pips on the compass, pointing to a place up the road and behind some rocks. She pulled out her shotgun, and the three of us carefully made our way to the bend in the road. The closer we got, the more I became aware of a shuffling sound, like bare feet scraping against pavement, accompanied by the occasional sounds of low growls and mutterings. ED-E hovered as low to the ground as he could; Cass and I moved behind an abandoned Chryslus Highwayman to get a look.

"You know," I whispered to Cass, "I asked Manny earlier if it was regular ghouls or if it was ferals. I guess I got my answer." All along the road ahead of us were 6… maybe 7 feral ghouls. The stench of death hung heavily in the air. They looked like walking corpses – they were emaciated, and most of them had skin just hanging loose off their bones. Though, walking was probably giving them too much credit. Most of them were squatting on the road, but the ones that were up and about were shuffling along, dragging their feet as they moved.

ED-E beeped quizzically. The one closest to where we were hiding perked his head up at the noise. He motioned like he was sniffing the air – except he had no nose. And then he looked directly at us with dead eyes.

"Shit."

The ghoul stopped shuffling, and let out a screech. I hated it when ferals screamed. The scream was raw, loud, and horrifically inhuman, like his vocal cords had been burned away to such an extent that this was the only sound they could even make anymore. But the real reason I hated it when ferals screamed was what happened next: every single feral on the street stopped what they were doing and turned as one to look at us. There were more screams, and they all got up and charged at us with a speed and ferocity that didn't seem possible from a pack of walking corpses.

I slipped into V.A.T.S., and instantly became aware that there was a lot more of them charging at us than just half a dozen. I squeezed off a few shots, trying to make every one count. I buried two slugs in the chest of the nearest one, but it didn't even seem fazed. I landed a third shot in its head and it went down with a sickening wet crunch. A few more went down to V.A.T.S. powered Roscoe, with help from Cass with her shotgun and ED-E with his laser. But just as I was reloading, a ghoul managed to slip by the three of us, and leap over the car right at me. To make matters worse, I heard that same mechanical female voice in my ear that I'd heard when I first discovered V.A.T.S.:

"We at Vault-Tec apologize for the inconvenience, but your Action Points have been depleted. Please allow them to recharge before using V.A.T.S. again." I could feel my eye twitch.

"OH, FOR THE LOVE OF -" the ghoul tackled me, sending me to the ground. I felt rather than saw Roscoe fly out of my hands and clatter to the ground somewhere behind me. I brought the arm with my Pip Boy up to shield my face, just as the ghoul lunged at me, as if to bite my face off. The ghoul scrambled and clawed at me, forcing me against the ground. Seeing it up close was not a pleasant experience, let me tell you. The flesh on its face was either hanging loose off the bones, or it was completely rotted away. One of its eyes, milky white like it had a massive cataract obscuring everything, was hanging loose in the socket and bulging out. It didn't have a nose, just an empty hole. Every orifice was dripping a black slimy ichor, and the smell made me want to vomit. I struggled against it, as it gnawed hungrily on my Pip Boy. I punched it in the side of the head, and it faltered enough for me to get my feet under it, and kick it solidly in the chest away from me.

The feral stood over me, readying itself to attack again. I started to get up and crawl away, to find where Roscoe had fallen, when its head exploded in a shower of gore.

"… what."

All around me, ferals started falling from headshots. I looked around – Cass (who had backed up considerably) looked just as confused as me, and even ED-E didn't seem to know what was going on. And that's when I saw him.

Taking careful aim from a vantage point above us was Boone, firing with an accuracy and speed I didn't think was possible. With every muzzle flash, another feral dropped dead from lead poisoning. In less than a minute, every feral had fallen. The road fell quiet as quickly as the violence had started. By the time I got up, wiped the gore off me, and found where Roscoe had fallen, Boone had come down from his perch and was making his way towards me, his scoped and silenced sniper rifle in hand.

"Thanks for the save, Boone. I didn't think I'd ever see you again." He nodded, saying nothing.

"Yeah, thanks…" Cass said, walking up toward us with a confused look on her face. "Hey Sheason, who is this guy?"

"Cass, this is Boone," I said, gesturing to him. His face remained impassive, like a stone statue carved out of granite. "Boone, Cassidy. I… uh, I helped him out with something last night." I turned back to him. "Like I said, I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Not to sound ungrateful, but what are you doing here?"

"Thought about what you said," he replied, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. "And you're right. Snipers should never operate without support. I've been down that path once before. Paid the price for it. Besides. I figured I owed you."

"Really?" I was genuinely confused. When he said 'I think our dealings are done here' last night, I figured we were square.

"Yeah. If you want, I'll help you out. Hang around till you find the man who shot you." He said, wasting no breath on unneeded words. I shrugged.

"Hey, having a 1st Recon sniper around is absolutely fine by me. Cass? Any objections?" I said, turning to Cass. She just looked around at all the ferals littering the ground with holes in their heads, slowly leaking black fluid onto the pavement.

"I think I'll be okay with it," she said with a smirk.

* * *

The road up to the rocket test site was much less eventful with Boone around. We didn't meet another large pack of ghouls after the first one. Boone was picking them off with his sniper rifle before they could even get close to us.

On the way there, though, we came across what looked like a makeshift bunker. It wasn't a proper bunker, since there was no roof; it was more like a dugout, since it didn't appear to be anything more than a few sandbags under a pedestrian overpass. ED-E beeped, I thought I heard Cass mutter something like "The fuck is this?" under her breath, and Boone… continued to say nothing. When we got closer I could see a couple of chairs, a few bedrolls, and some ammo boxes. This most certainly didn't look like the work of ferals. The really strange thing though, was the pile of ash nearby.

"Energy weapons," Boone spoke up. I shot him a quizzical look.

"Are you sure?" I knelt down next to the pile of ash, to give it a better look.

"Yeah."

"How can you tell?" I asked. To be honest, it looked like it was probably the work of some kind of energy weapon, but I couldn't be absolutely sure. He pointed at a spot in the makeshift dugout.

"That ghoul has a laser rifle."

I got up and took a look. There was, indeed, a dead ghoul where he was pointing, but it didn't look like any of the ferals we'd run into on the way here. Quite aside from the boxy laser rifle still clutched in his dead hands, this ghoul seemed much more intact… well, more intact for a ghoul, anyway. His skin was mostly see-through, but it wasn't falling off, and he even still had a bit of hair left. The really odd thing was the fact that this ghoul wore a dark green robe with brown trim. It almost made him look like a monk, or a scribe in the Brotherhood of Steel.

"This guy isn't a feral," I gave voice to my thoughts. Cass nodded.

"There's a difference?" Boone asked.

"Well sure," Cass chimed in, as she went around the dugout-bunker, looking through the ammo cans and metal boxes, finding stuff to put in her duffle bag. "Y'ever been ta Necropolis? Whole city fulla ghouls. Lot's o' them'r really nice, an' willin' ta trade. Regular ghouls'r just like… people, y'know? S'th' ferals that'r all crazy flesh-hungry zombies."

"Hey Cass, think this'll fetch a good price?" I'd grabbed the laser rifle from the dead ghoul, and held it in the air for her to see.

"Looks good, toss it 'ere!" she said.

"Sure thing – but if you find any microfusion cells, I call dibs. I'll need them for the car."

"Car?" Boone raised an eyebrow.

* * *

The first image we had of the rocket test site was a massive dome. It was set into the side of the mountain, and looked remarkably intact, despite being at least 200 years old. Nearby, also set into the mountain, was a mostly square four-story building, which looked much worse for wear than the dome. As we walked closer, we saw a sign by the side of the road. It looked made out of stone, and the "O" had fallen out of "REPCONN." Behind the sign and in front of the stairs leading to the building was a roundabout, with a rusted statue of a rocket ship with a yellow tip and five fins sticking out of the dirt.

Four cracks from Boone's sniper rifle later, and four more ghouls had fallen. I wanted to think that using my Pip Boys friend/foe compass was helping me be a good spotter for Boone, but frankly it didn't really seem like he needed my help all that much. ED-E zoomed ahead of us, flying up to get a good look at the rocket, and we made our way towards the dilapidated office building. All around us, we saw more sandbag barricades, more dead ghouls, and more smoking ash piles. Suddenly, Boone stopped, and held up his hand to get our attention.

"Hold up." He made his way towards one of the barricades, and knelt down to get a look at something behind the sandbag wall. I followed him cautiously, checking my Pip Boys compass again to make sure we were clear of any more hostiles. When I saw the figure lying on the ground that had caught Boone's attention, I stopped in my tracks.

"Is that what I think it is?" I asked Boone.

"Yeah."

Sprawled on the ground was a body, which had to be at least 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It was a mass of veiny, solid muscle, with dark blue skin stretched taught. There literally wasn't a single ounce of fat on this creature. Its eyes were wide open, like it didn't even have eyelids; the eyes were set deep in its skull underneath a heavy brow. Its mouth was held open and pulled up in a permanent sneer by two leather straps attached to its lips on both sides, showing a mouth full of large, perfectly straight (and strangely white) teeth. It wore a brown cloth hood covering an incredibly thick and wide head, a brown tunic around its waist, brown leather boots, and there was a stop sign wrapped around its right arm, like a shield held in place by twisted metal rods bent around its arm. In the center of its chest was a gaping, cauterized hole – the killing blow from an energy weapon that didn't turn it to a pile of ash.

"What is it?" Cass said, poking it in the arm with the barrel of her shotgun.

"It's a super mutant," I said simply. That's the only thing it could be. This one looked different from the other super mutants I'd seen in the past, however.

"Wait, this is a super mutant? Never seen one up close, 'fore…" Cass knelt down to get a better look at it. "Ugly fucker, ain't he?"

"Hang on," I said. "You've never seen a super mutant up close before? Didn't you say you've been to Necropolis?" Cass nodded.

"I have, but Necropolis is pretty fuckin' big nowadays, an' I never went too deep into th' city. Only ever saw ghouls there. No mutants."

"Commando," Boone chimed in. "Different kind of mutant. Regular mutants have green skin."

"A commando?" Cass and I exchanged glances. I'd never heard of a super mutant commando before. Boone continued.

"They specialize in hit and run tactics. They're the only kind of mutants I've seen that use Stealth Boys. A normal mutant will run at you with a sledgehammer; a commando will sneak up behind you and bash your skull in."

"An' how do **you** know all this, anyway?" Cass asked, raising an eyebrow.

"1st Recon," was his only response. He walked up the stairs away from us, towards the building.

* * *

When we opened the front door to the Repconn building, we were greeted by a scene of erupted chaos. Smears of dried blood painted the walls, broken up by bullet holes and burn marks. Robed ghouls with energy weapons lay on the ground all around; a dead super mutant lay sprawled on the floor in front of the door, and I nearly tripped over it upon entering. There was a curved front desk behind the dead mutant, and above the desk was a model of a rocket, hanging from the ceiling. There were five doors – two on the far left and far right contained stairs which presumably led to the balcony above, two doors behind the front desk that led to bathrooms, and a door directly behind the desk that was unlabeled.

"Hey!" I heard an unfamiliar voice cry out. It sounded filtered, but it was rough and raspy, like a ghoul that hadn't yet turned feral but who still had ruined vocal cords. I couldn't quite tell where the voice was coming from.

"Over here!" the voice sounded again. I looked around, and eventually found the source: an intercom speaker mounted on the wall to my left. I carefully stepped over the mutant and walked over to the intercom.

"Are you even listening?" he said again, sounding agitated. I reached the intercom, and pressed the talk button.

"Yeah, I'm here," I said into the metal box. "Who's this?"

"Go to the big room on the east side of this building and take the metal staircase all the way up. And hurry," the raspy voice said, ignoring my question.

"That'll depend on who I'm talking to. Who are you?" I asked again.

"Who I am doesn't matter, smoothskin," he replied. "Stop wasting time and get up here! Find the metal staircase in the big room on the east side of the building, where they used to make rockets." With an audible click, the voice cut out.

"Ominous little fucker, ain't he?" Cass said, adjusting the strap on the duffel bag still slung across her back. ED-E beeped. Boone said nothing.

"Well?" I asked, turning to my companions. "What do you think? Should we find out what's upstairs?"

Before anyone could answer, a raw, loud, and horrifically inhuman screech filled the air. More ferals had arrived. I had just pulled out Roscoe when Boone leveled his rifle at a point up on the balcony and fired. A moment later, I saw a feral tumbling over the balcony railing, falling to the ground with a sickening wet crunch. ED-E floated up above the rocket and I heard a mixture of marching music and discharging laser blasts.

"Follow me!" I said to Cass, and we rushed to the stairs on the right – towards the east side of the building. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Boone backing up, covering the rear. Suddenly, a feral rounded the corner and was about to charge… but there was a metal snapping sound, and the feral's foot was caught in a bear trap. It howled in pain for only a moment; Cass put it out of its misery with a shotgun blast to the face.

"Keep an eye out – somebody's set up traps," I said, cautiously peering around the corner and up the stairs. There was another feral at the top of the stairs, who had been snarling over the railing, but had turned and spotted me. I slipped into V.A.T.S. – hoping my action points (or whatever they were called) had recharged – and fired at the ghoul. The bullet went straight through its open mouth and out the back of its skull.

There were only a few more ferals between us and the metal staircase we'd been instructed to find. The building seemed like a maze; I kept us on track, thanks to the map making feature of my Pip Boy… though in truth, I probably didn't need it: it only seemed like a maze because of the damage to the walls and the lights, not to mention all the dead ghouls and piles of ash everywhere. I had confidence enough in my own sense of direction, but better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.

When we got to the east side of the building, there was a fork. One way was a staircase leading down. The other way was into a large factory floor. The door looked like it had been blown off its hinges, and was lying on top of a dead super mutant that no longer had a head. In the back of the room, just like the ominous voice had said, was a metal staircase leading upward. ED-E flew past me, and up into the rafters, past a half-finished rocket. He returned a moment later, and beeped cheerfully at me.

"What d'ya suppose that means?" Cass asked. I shrugged.

"With any luck, he's saying the way is clear." As if to reassure me, the little robot bobbed in the air, almost like someone shaking their head. So, the four of us made our way up the twisting metal staircase until finally we came to a door with another intercom speaker next to it. I went up to the door, and tried to turn the handle; it wouldn't budge. The intercom turned on with an audible click.

"All right, smoothskin," the same voice as before said. "I'm letting you in. You better watch yourself. I'll sure as hell be watching you." The intercom turned off, and I heard a bolt in the door unlatched. I swung the door open, and was face to face – with a human. He was a balding man with thick eyebrows and moustache that looked interchangeable with one another; he looked to be in his forties, and he wore a white lab coat over a shirt and tie.

"God, but are you ugly!" he said, revealing himself as the unmistakable voice from behind the intercom. "All of you… yeesh! Get upstairs and talk to Jason before I throw up just from looking at you." I was confused, and looked to my companions, but was met with similar uncomprehending faces.

"Hang on," I finally said to him. "You don't look like a ghoul." He just raised an eyebrow at me.

"Your pranks won't work on me, smoothskin," he practically snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. "They won't work on Jason, either."

"Y'know, yer skin looks pretty smooth to me," Cass said, mockingly.

"Stop wasting my time, smoothskins!" he finally yelled, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Go talk to Jason, and leave me alone!" And with that, he stormed off in a huff.

"The fuck was that?" Cass asked me, trying to hold back a laugh. I shrugged, looking to Boone, who just silently shook his head. ED-E let out a series of beeps that I could swear sounded like a chuckle. The four of us made our way through the hallways and up a set of stairs, past banks of computer terminals, and ghouls in the same robes we'd seen before milling about. When I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a voice from behind me – it was odd, and didn't sound like a ghoul, but it didn't sound human either. There was a weird sort of echoing quality to his speech that sounded almost alien.

"Hello, and welcome, wanderers." I turned to look at the man speaking – and this man was most certainly a ghoul. He was wearing robes similar to the other ghouls, except they were a deep burgundy, and looked to be in worse condition, having burned and frayed in many places… though that could be because this ghoul looked positively radioactive. Patches of his skin glowed with a bright green bioluminescence. Somehow, his eyes stood out as much as the glowing patches on his skin – they were completely blue, with no iris, no pupil, and no sclera, just eyes that were a single solid color. His arms were extended in a welcoming gesture, and he was standing underneath a hole in the roof, bathing him in a shaft of sunlight that made him look otherworldly.

"Please, forgive us our humble surroundings," he continued, reaching his hands to the sky. "Our true home awaits us in the Far Beyond."

"Are you Jason?" I asked. He nodded, clasping his hands together in front of him and smiling at me; even without showing any teeth, a smiling ghoul is a distinctly disturbing image.

"Yes. I am Jason Bright, the prophet of the Great Journey. All the ghouls you see here are members of my flock. Have you and your compatriots come to help us complete the Great Journey?" he asked, making more sweeping motions with his hands. If nothing else, he seemed to love gesticulating.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Cass spoke up, shaking her hands at Jason. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was trying as hard as she could not to laugh. "Yer last name is 'Bright?' Yer shittin' me! That's hilarious!"

"An auspicious name, don't you think?" Jason merely smiled again, seemingly taking no offense. "It was mine before I became as I am now. Before the Great War, even. Truly does The Creator author a destiny for each and every one of us."

"Listen," I said, motioning for Cass to quiet down. "I'll be honest. I don't know anything about this Great Journey, or this creator you're talking about. I'm here because Novac is worried about the feral ghouls wandering into their town." Which was true enough, even though Manny had specifically said the ghouls weren't wandering; I thought it more diplomatic to blame it on the ferals than to just say 'The people of Novac want you to leave, get the fuck out.' Jason closed his eyes, and he hung his head slightly, his voice taking on a melancholy air.

"And they've been shooting them down like animals, haven't they?" I stayed quiet; it was probably a bad idea to mention all the ferals we had to fight through just to get up here. "Those ghouls were members of my flock, even after the madness consumed their minds. We never let them wander free. We kept them safe on the first floor. We kept them contained! The Demons must have let them out, somehow… And now they are lost forever, denied the salvation and healing glow of the Far Beyond…"

"Tell me about the demons," I was surprised to hear Boone speak up.

"The Demons appeared from nowhere… except it might be more accurate to say they never actually 'appeared' at all. The Demons are invisible. Where one of them stands, the most one sees is the air shimmering, like sunlight on water…" That sounded a lot like the super mutants we'd seen on the way in; the 'commandos' Boone had talked about, using Stealth Boys. I looked to Boone, and he nodded, like he knew what I was thinking. Jason continued

"They set upon us as we were on our way to worship one morning. We had just entered the basement. My flock fought bravely, and killed a few, but at such cost. Nearly half of our number died or went missing. What you see before you are all that remains. Once we retreated, one of the Demons raved at us, but they have not tried to attack us since. Still, their demonic presence brought all progress towards the Great Journey to the Far Beyond to a standstill."

"Ok, you keep talking about it – what is this Far Beyond?" I asked, my curiosity finally getting the better of me.

"I have glimpsed it only in visions, wanderer, but what I have seen is truly miraculous. It is a place of light and healing, and I know in my soul that my flock will be safe there."

"Well, that's unhelpfully vague," Cass chimed in.

"The means by which the Great Journey is to be accomplished and any details of the Far Beyond are articles of faith, not to be discussed with outsiders. I apologize, but that is the dogma passed down to me by The Creator."

"Alright, fair enough I guess. But to complete this Great Journey, you and all the ghouls will leave Repconn though, right? And will that include the ferals?" I asked, a thought having just occurred to me. Jason nodded.

"Once the way is clear, my brothers and sisters will gather any feral ghouls with us, and they shall accompany us on the Great Journey… if there are any left."

I turned around, and motioned for Cass and Boone to come in close so I could speak to them (somewhat) in private. Even ED-E hovered in close.

"Well? What do you think?" I asked, quietly.

"I think he's nuttier'n a bighorner droppin." Cass said bluntly.

"There's commandos in the basement for sure," Boone said. "Don't know how many."

"That's true," I said. "But if we can find some way to get rid of the super mutants, then the ghouls will leave, too, and that's the whole reason I came up here."

ED-E beeped at me. I wanted to say something, but just shook my head instead.

"Will that compass work if they're stealthed?" Boone asked, pointing at my Pip Boy. I took a look at it, bringing up the compass. There was no way to tell from the bars on the compass what was being tracked, how far away it was, or if it could track someone who was stealthed; hell, if there were a lot of contacts, they tended to mix in with one another, so a lot of times it would be impossible to tell how many it was tracking. It was a very basic friend/foe indicator.

"I'll be honest, I don't know." There was a long pause.

"Commandos are tough," Boone said finally. "But they're not invincible. I'm game if you are." I nodded.

"Hopefully it won't have to come to that – I've met mutants in Necropolis before, and… well, to be honest, the ones that I met seemed decent enough. With any luck, we can convince the mutants to leave along with the ghouls." I turned to Cass. "Well? What do you think? Can we handle some mutants in the basement?" Cass pulled the laser rifle out of her duffel bag and loaded a microfusion cell in it.

"If we're goin' down there, I'm usin' this. Don' think my shotgun'll do fuck all if'n it comes to blows, but if all the ash piles'r any indication, they disintegrate like ev'ryone else."

"ED-E?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. The robot beeped happily, bobbing in the air as if nodding like it did before. Good enough for me. I turned around to face Jason again.

"Alright, I've talked it over with my friends, and we'll help you with your 'demon' problem, so long as you and the rest of the ghouls leave after we're done. Deal?" In response, Jason held his hands up to the hole in the roof again.

"Praise The Creator! Bless you, wanderers! Bless us all! Once again, The Creator has sent a human to help us across a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. As soon as the underground has been rid of The Demons, preparations for the Great Journey can resume!"

* * *

Jason had given us a key to unlock the door that led to the basement. When the door opened, the pungent aroma of sweaty socks and engine exhaust blasted me in the face. Only a few of the lights in the first room we entered worked. There was an odd mechanical thrumming noise reverberating through the walls that sounded like a generator of some kind – or several.

The four of us made our way through the basement, as quietly as we could. I had Roscoe drawn, but frankly if we did end up running into any super mutants, I wasn't sure it would do any good. I was busying myself, checking my Pip Boy's compass. There were a few red pips, but because the tunnels in the basement seemed to twist and turn, I couldn't tell if the enemies it was picking up were stealthed or not.

Eventually, we came to a fork in the road. Left or right. Both led further down into the basement. Using a completely scientific method that wasn't in any way a random guess, I picked the right passage. We walked down the path for a bit, until we got to a door – at which point a green pip flashed on my compass from behind the door. A friendly?

"Hang back a bit," I whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Watch the exit." I checked the door, and it slid open with a shudder and a clang. Inside was – a super mutant! This super mutant looked like he should have been as tall as the corpses we'd seen if he stretched up to his full height, but because he was hunching over so much, he looked about 7 and a half, maybe 8 feet tall. He was blue skinned, just like the others, but covered in more furs and leathers, some of it dyed red. He was just sort of standing behind a desk, holding a brahmin skull in his hands. He was holding it so that it almost looked like it was looking at him. When I opened the door, he didn't seem to notice me right away.

"What's that, Antler? We have a visitor?" He spoke in a loud, gravelly roar, but not to me – he was talking to the skull. It didn't sound like he could speak in a voice quieter than a yell. "An assassin, more like! I say kill it, Antler! For safe's sake! Huh? … Okay, Antler. I'll ask." He set the skull down on a nearby coffee machine, positioned so the skull was… 'looking' at me. He set a hand on the desk, and stared at me with bulging eyes. This time when he spoke, he spoke to me, and spoke slowly – almost like I wouldn't understand if he spoke faster. "Uh… Hi. Human. Why you come here?"

"Uh… are you alright?" I asked, unsure what was going on. Cass and Boone had both rushed to see what the commotion was and were starting to raise their weapons at the super mutant, when I waved them off.

"I AM IN COMMAND OF MY FACULTIES!" He yelled even louder. He slammed a giant fist on the desk, denting it and making the skull bounce in the air a few inches. "IN COMMAND OF MY TROOPS!" He calmed down a little, and went back to his normal gravelly roar-speaking voice. "Antler guides me in all things! As I in turn guide my kin!"

Of the myriad emotions and thoughts swirling around my head, "Don't upset the crazy super mutant" seemed the most sane. So I decided to answer his first question.

"You asked why I'm here, right? Uh… well, Jason Bright and the ghouls upstairs sent me down to… uh, talk to you." I lied. He eyed me apprehensively.

"A human who is friend to ghouls? Suspicious. Antler used intercom, told them stay put. But they want to come down in basement anyways? I cannot allow. My kin are… not right in head like I am. They attack you on sight. Ghouls too. THEY CRAZY!" As if to illustrate the point, the super mutant waved his arms about. "Your ghoul friends have to wait until we find what Antler brought us to get. Antler brought us here for reason! Er…" He looked confused for a moment, then stared down at the brahmin skull. "What was that, Antler?" He paused, as if waiting for a response. "Right! A piece of paper! Shipment invoice! Hundreds of Stealth Boys! Sent here, long time ago! But Stealth Boys must be in the one room. One we don't search yet – the one we can't search."

"Why not?" Cass chimed in, having been listening to the super mutant rant. It's not like she could've ignored him if she wanted to.

"A ghoul!" He yelled. "But not squishy like others! This ghoul is tough. I thought Antler said send my kin into that room, but three died. Ghoul is crack shot, and set traps too! After, I realize I heard Antler wrong. So I lock door to keep kin out, and wait for Antler to tell me what to do. Then YOU come along! Antler says you are solution!" He pointed a thick finger in my direction, staring at me.

I rubbed the scar on my temple. This is getting ridiculous, I thought to myself.

"If I find the Stealth Boy stockpile for you, will you and your… er, kin, leave, and let the ghouls come back down to the basement?"

"Yes!" I couldn't tell if he was happy, since his face didn't change expression, but it… almost sounded like he was happy. Sort of. "Antler says we leave here as soon as we get Stealth Boys! Let me give you key. Antler had me lock the door. The ghoul inside not expecting a human. Maybe he don't shoot you. Maybe he do. Now go! Find Stealth Boys!"

He threw the key at me, and it hit me in the middle of my forehead with a lot more force than I was expecting. I gave him a nod, a forced smile, and a friendly wave goodbye as I picked the key up off the ground and shut the door. As soon as it shut, my smile evaporated and I just let out a heavy sigh, leaning against the wall, and rubbing my forehead.

"Ok," I said finally. "So. What do we do?"

"The situation hasn't changed," Boone said simply. "You should've just let me shoot him."

"Thanks for that, Boone," I said, rubbing my forehead. "But frankly, I'd much rather not fight super mutants if I don't have to – especially since all I have is Roscoe here." I held up my 9mm, to illustrate the point. Most reliable pistol I'd ever had, sure, but by no stretch of the imagination was it powerful; not to mention, I'd heard stories in the past about super mutants shrugging off bullets to the face from an assault rifle. What good was Roscoe going to do?

"Well hell, if y'needed more firepower, why didn't ya jus' ask?" Cass said, reaching into her duffel bag and pulling out a plasma rifle. It wasn't boxy like the laser rifle; this was all curves and pipes and tubes and bulges. It looked dowright alien compared to Roscoe.

"Where the hell did you find that?"

"One of th' ghouls on th' way up had it. Swiped it so we could sell it, but I figure, we can use it too. Or, t'least you." I holstered Roscoe and took the plasma rifle with a nod. It was a lot lighter than I was expecting. "So what's th' plan?" she continued. "We helpin' th' muties now?"

"Let's at least check out the room," I said with a sigh. "With luck, the ghoul will know if there are Stealth Boys, and hopefully we won't run into any cloaked super mutants on the way." ED-E beeped in conformation, and floated off, towards the other path in the fork. I followed, plasma rifle drawn; Cass fell in behind me with her looted laser rifle; Boone stayed in the rear. A few moments later, we were at the door. It had to be where the ghoul was: sprawled in front of the door was a dead super mutant: 2 bullet holes in its skull, and 5 in its chest. Cautiously, I opened the door, and kept behind the doorframe as it opened. There was a bang, and a rifle bullet embedded itself in the metal floor by my feet with a ping.

"Come and get it, you big dumb ugly -" the unmistakable gravelly voice of a ghoul yelled. I cut him off midsentence, yelling back at him from behind the doorframe.

"We're not mutants! Hold your fire!" There was a long pause. Cautiously, I stepped through the door into the room. There was another dead mutant lying face first on the ground in front of me. All around the room, I could see traps – trip wires, bear traps, disturbed gravel that looked like it could be some kind of disguised mines… These were the same kind of traps I'd seen upstairs, obviously set by the same ghoul. Off in the far corner was another super mutant, his foot caught in a bear trap and half of his face was simply gone. Cass and ED-E followed me, but Boone stayed outside, watching the rear.

"Huh. You're not one of those things out there." The ghoul said, stating the obvious. He wasn't wearing robes like the other ghouls upstairs; his outfit was much more practical, covered with ammo and pouches. He was holding a rifle in his hands, and a pair of goggles hung around his neck. "Who the hell are you?"

"Jason sent me down here to get rid of the 'demons.' He didn't tell me there were any ghouls left down here." I said, looking up at him. He was on the 2nd floor of the room, crouched on a catwalk that not only gave him cover, but an elevated position. Smart. He let out a sound; I couldn't tell if it was a laugh or a cough.

"And I bet he told you it's the creators will for you to risk your ass, instead of him, right? Well, good luck with that. I'd give you a hand, but no thanks. I may look like a corpse, but I'm partial to living!" He spat on the catwalk.

"How'd you end up trapped in here?" I asked. I couldn't be sure, but I could swear I saw the corners of his mouth twitch when I asked.

"First off, I'm not trapped. This was a tactical choice, all right? I'm no match for those things out there, so I found a good defensible position, and I've been defending it, all right?" I said nothing, but continued to look up at him. He looked nervous, but eventually shook his head. "Aw, who am I fooling? I'm trapped, I admit it. Name's Harland. Pleased to meet you," he said with another coughing laugh.

"Nice to meet you, Harland. I'm Sheason. This is Cass, and… er, ED-E." I said, pointing to my companions.

"What happened was, I was escorting folks down to work when those things attacked us. Most of the fight was upstairs, but some folks panicked and made for the basement… and like a moron, I went after them. Turns out, there were even more of the bastards down here than upstairs, and things went to shit fast. I couldn't find the others, so I fell back to this room and set up a nice kill zone. End of story."

"Y'know, y'don't look like th' other ghouls…" Cass said to him when he finished his story.

"Guess the outfit gives that away, huh?" He said, with yet another coughing laugh. "I never did buy into all that religious mumbo-jumbo with the robes and all that shit. What can I say, it gets lonely out in the wastes, okay? And I don't have to tell you that Bright's group has got some fine lookin' ghoulettes in it!"

There was a very, very awkward pause.

"Er…" he finally thought about what he said. "I guess, maybe I would have to tell you…" he muttered something about smoothskins that I couldn't quite make out, and continued. "Anyway, I helped them out, and they kept me supplied with food, ammo, and pleasant company."

"So, how the hell have you survived down here, anyway?" I asked.

"I'm not delicate," Harland stated, like it was just a fact of life. "Radroach meat for protein, condensation off the pipes for water, and I do my business over in the far corner."

There was another awkward pause.

"I wouldn't say it's been comfy."

"Look, do you know why the super mutants are here?" He shook his head, and I continued. "They're here, because they're looking for a cache of Stealth Boys. This is the only room in the building they haven't searched, and once they find the Stealth Boys, they're gone. Do you know if there's any Stealth Boys in here?" He just stared at me like I was stupid.

"Do you really think if there was anything in here that made me invisible, I'd still be here?"

"Can we take a look around?" Cass asked.

"No." Harland said forcefully. I felt my eye twitch.

"Why not?" I asked.

"For one thing, the room is still full of traps – and I don't want them going off unless they have to. You can search the room to your hearts content when I leave." I suddenly got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; somehow, I knew where this was going.

"Is there any way I can help you out of this room then?" I said, trying not to sound angry through gritted teeth. This had gone beyond ridiculous. A part of me wondered if it wouldn't have just been easier to shoot everyone who wanted to send me somewhere else and be done with it.

"Hurm," he growled. "Well. You're certainly polite, I'll give you that." I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

"And if this was just between you and me," he continued, "I'd leave, but it's not. I had a friend with me when the muties came out of nowhere. She panicked and ran the wrong direction – further into the basement. She's probably dead, but I ain't leaving until I know for sure. I'd have gone myself, except I wouldn't last a minute out there. All of you, on the other hand, seem pretty resourceful. Find my friend, and I'll get out of your way. You can search the room for non-existent Stealth Boys till your eyes burst after that." I looked to Cass. She just shrugged.

"Let's help th' boy out," she said. "We're already here, why th' fuck not?"

"Alright," I said with resignation, looking back up at Harland. "We'll help you find your friend."

"Thanks," he said. "Let me know what you find out." He paused, then added softly and mostly to himself "Here's hoping she's okay…"

* * *

The path to the deeper parts of the basement was incredibly, unbelievably tense. I had my eyes on my Pip Boy almost constantly, checking the map and the friend/foe compass to make sure we didn't get lost in the labyrinthine maze of twisting metal corridors, and that we stayed clear of any super mutants.

Eventually, the four of us entered a fairly large room off one of the hallways; the room was dimly lit, and had a few banks of powered-down computer mainframes on one side. As soon as we entered, I heard a noise from the doorway on the other side of the room. It was a loud, rhythmic thumping sound, like heavy footfalls against a metal grate. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Boone practically disappear into the shadows made by the mainframes, and Cass swiftly (but less quietly) followed him; even ED-E stayed silent, floating into the darkness of the ceiling. I pressed myself flat against the wall, looking at my Pip Boy's compass. One of the red pips was moving in time with the footfalls, before both it and the sound stopped right near the door. Cautiously, I did my best to get a look outside the door without being seen.

Just outside the door, I could see the faint silhouette of a large figure completely filling the doorframe… but it didn't look natural. For one thing, inside the silhouette, I could see the wall behind, but distorted slightly, like trying to view something through a piece of warped glass or through some water. But mostly, it felt unnatural because there was a green outline around the distortion, exactly like the kind of outline I'd see when V.A.T.S. would activate, except fainter. I could hear the figure breathing heavily, low and loud, growling like a deathclaw as it stood there… or it could have just been me breathing that heavily, I'm not really sure. My heart was pounding in my ears, and I could feel a few droplets of sweat form on my face; I tried my damnedest to keep my breathing constant, staying as still as I possibly could. I heard the beast snort loudly, and the outline moved away from the doorframe. I checked my Pip Boy – the red pip on the compass moved along with the visual distortion.

Ok. So. The Pip Boy compass actually could track a stealthed super mutant. Good to know.

Somehow, knowing that most of these red pips were most likely stealthed super mutants both calmed me down and set me on edge simultaneously. On the one hand, now I knew exactly what we were dealing with, and could avoid them that much better now. On the other hand, this just confirmed that the super mutants down here were invisible. Which, I'll be honest, wasn't an ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination. There was one upside: because I'd been keeping such a close eye on the red pips, and the map maker on my Pip Boy was doing its job, I was able to take this new data and figure out that the super mutants down here were either milling about and remaining stationary, or patrolling hallways in patterns that I finally had all the pieces to see.

Finally, the four of us had managed to sneak our way through the corridors and past the super mutants, coming to a door that (according to my Pip Boy) led to the lowest accessible part of the basement. My compass registered a single red pip from inside the room. With any luck, I'd be able to get the door open without the super mutant on the other side knowing.

Unfortunately, it seems all our luck had been used up sneaking past the super mutants to get to this point. I barely touched the door, and the hydraulics kicked in, sliding it down into the floor and the walls with a screech of metal against metal. I heard a loud, low snorting-growl from inside, followed by heavy stomping footfalls coming towards us.

Before I could react, ED-E zoomed over my head into the room, triumphant bugle music playing over its speaker. From around the corner, a distortion much larger than the one I'd seen earlier came around the corner, roared, and balls of fire materialized in the air after ED-E; the robot just zoomed around the room ahead of the fireballs, distracting the mutant. I ran into the room – not after ED-E, but to what was (I assumed) behind the mutant. The air shimmered around it as gouts of flame surged forth. I didn't know where Cass and Boone were – hopefully, they were right behind me.

As quick as I could, I leveled my plasma rifle towards the distortion in the air. The plasma rifle fired agonizingly slow; much slower than I was expecting. I squeezed the trigger as fast as I could, but only a single burst of superheated green plasma exited the barrel and impacted on the stealthed figure. My nostrils burned as the air became flush with the smell of ozone. Lightning crackled, and the stealth field started to falter, making the super mutant barely visible. It roared and turned towards me, murder in its face. ED-E flew around and hit the flamethrower the mutant was carrying with a blast from his laser. The flamethrower glowed brightly for half a second, and then the mutant dropped it to the floor with a clang.

Despite that, the mutant's attention was still firmly focused on me. I pulled the trigger again, but the rifle was still charging; I let out a short, violent profanity and started to run for any kind of cover. I cast a glance behind me, and saw it pull a blade off of its back which looked like the front bumper of my car. I rolled away, leveling the plasma rifle again, and fired another plasma bolt at it. Unfortunately it went way too high and impacted with a splash of melting superheated metal on the ceiling above the mutant.

There was a crack of a rifle, and the mutant's head was knocked violently to the side. Boone had gotten behind and to the side of the mutant, his rifle pointed square at the giant's skull. It turned to Boone with a roar, just as Boone fired again. The mutant staggered back slightly, clutching its face for half a second before swinging its bumper-sword towards Boone with a crash. Boone dove out of the way, just as the metal floor where he was standing buckled under the force of the mutants swing.

A pair of laser blasts cut through the air and hit the monster square in the back. ED-E was flying over Cass, and they were both firing their lasers. I fired another blast of plasma, striking the monster in the arm; a red hot disk of swiftly cooling molten plasma smoldered on its skin. It roared, not sure which of us to attack first, howling in pain.

It settled on me, and started to charge, with its bumper-sword raised in the air. I was about to fire another plasma blast, but quite suddenly the super mutant's whole body jerked backwards violently, and it dropped the bumper-sword. When his head rocked forwards, I saw a hand firmly grasped on one of the leather straps holding its mouth up in the permanent snarl. It hunched over, flailing its arms to try and reach Boone, who was riding on the back of the super mutant. His beret and sunglasses were not on his face, and the hand that wasn't holding onto the mutant was carrying a wicked looking bowie knife. With a shout almost as loud as the mutant, Boone brought the bowie knife down into the mutant's chest. The super mutant let out a howl, and Boone stabbed him in the chest twice more before bringing it up and stabbing the mutant under the chin, burying the knife up to the hilt. There was a wet gurgle, and even from where I was standing I could see the mutant's eyes roll and look in opposite directions. Dark red blood seeped out of its mouth and from the wound under its chin as Boone pulled out the knife. The super mutant wobbled in place for a good five seconds, before Boone jumped off and the mutant toppled forwards, dead.

If not for the loud thudding of machinery and generators coming from the level below us, the room would've been completely silent. There weren't any sounds of mutants coming into the room to see what all the noise was, so that was good. Cass and I were both breathing heavily. ED-E let loose a burst of victorious marching music. Boone merely walked over to the mutant, wiped the blood on his knife onto the mutant's tunic, and then turned to where his beret and sunglasses had fallen, picking them up without a sound. When he picked up his rifle, I pointed at the massive corpse.

"And that," I said, still gasping for air, "that is the reason I don't want to fight super mutants unless I have to."

Boone let out a soft, throaty chuckle and smirked.

* * *

We descended further into the basement. I didn't see any contacts on my Pip Boy this far down, so the four of us were much more relaxed than up above. The thudding we'd heard in the room above during our fight with the mutant was much more pronounced here, thanks to the massive generators taking up most of the space in these rooms.

The four of us spread out, trying to find Harland's friend. Almost immediately, Cass hollered something barely audible over the thump of the generators, so I followed her voice to see what she'd found, as did Boone and ED-E.

Lying on the ground in one of the side rooms was the body of a female ghoul. She wore a robe like the rest of Bright's religious ghouls, and her eyes had rolled back in her head. A large dark stain of dried blood covered the floor around her head, and when I knelt in to get a close look, I could see the top of her skull had been completely caved in. Boone and Cass said nothing, but ED-E let out a series of sad sounding beeps. I was just about to get up and leave, so we could tell Harland the bad news when I noticed something shiny out of the corner of my eye. She had something clutched in her hand; a small necklace, with a pendant made out of what looked like a tiny piece of scrap metal, crudely fashioned into the shape of a heart. An "H" had been scratched in the middle.

* * *

"Well?" Harland asked, as the four of us came back to his trap-filled room. "Did you find my friend?"

I nodded, grimacing. "I'm sorry," I said up to him. He was silent for a few moments.

"I see. Well… spare me the details," he spat on the catwalk again. Then, he said under his breath "Damnit, I'm gonna miss that crooked, yellow smile…" he turned back to me and continued, grabbing a few boxes of rifle ammo off the floor and shoving them into the pockets on his jacket.. "Alright. You did your part. Look around up here if you want. I'm gonna make a break for topside." He disappeared from view, and a few seconds later a door on the far wall opened, revealing a staircase to the upper level. Rifle in hand, he made his way past the traps and towards the exit. I held up a hand to stop him.

"Hey, before you go," I said, pulling the small necklace out of one of my jacket pockets. "She was holding this. I thought you might want it."

He took it in his hands, and looked at it. Ghouls are really hard to read sometimes. I think part of that could be because they no longer have any skin to speak of. He let a breath out of the hole on his face where his nose used to be, and looked up at me while placing it in one of the pockets on his jacket. He nodded at me.

"Thanks," he said in a whisper that just ended up sounding more like a growl. And with that, he rushed out of the room towards the surface.

"Alright," I said to my companions. "Let's check to see if this room has any Stealth Boys." We spread out – ED-E and I took the upstairs, while Boone and Cass checked the downstairs. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a rifle shot, followed by a lot of loud bangs.

"Boone got ridda' th' mines!" I heard Cass yell up at me. I just smiled and shook my head, continuing up.

I searched without success through a lot of crates in the upstairs of this room that looked like they hadn't been opened in 200 years. Eventually, I found a computer terminal sitting on a desk. It was plugged into the wall, and amazingly was still powered up. I set my rifle on the desk, and took a look, hoping it would give me any information about the Stealth Boys. At first, it didn't want to cooperate, but I gave a strong whack on the side; the screen flickered and then (with a little more prodding) divulged its secrets.

Mostly, the terminal just had messages between people working in the offices upstairs from before the bombs fell. Then I found three messages that looked promising. The first, labeled as "RE: Shipment Mistake?" looked like the message the super mutant with Antler was talking about. It was mostly talking about things that had lost all relevance over 200 years ago, but it did eventually make mention of "a bunch of crates containing two gross of devices called 'StealthBoys'."

The next message I saw was labeled "RE: Workplace Misbehavior" and was apparently sent to all Repconn staff, informing them that they needed to "give a thorough reading to Repconn's sexual harassment and workplace behavior policies," and that "while it is not explicitly stated in the Employee Handbook, unauthorized use of military hardware against fellow employees is grounds for immediate termination." I couldn't help but chuckle at the implications.

The last one, however, seemed the most relevant:

_REPCONN Inter-office Correspondence #3486289_  
_To: RobCo HQ Supply Department_  
_From: Sanjeev Rajan, REPCONN Custodian_

_RE: Shipment Sent Back_

_Hi RobCo Supply:_

_We are sending two (2) crates of devices labeled "StealthBoys" back to you. According to the manifest, each crate contained one gross (144) of the devices. As a result of employee misbehavior (not mine!), one crate was opened and is missing five (5) Stealthboys. Sorry about that._

_Sincerely,_  
_Sanjeev Rajan, Custodian_

I checked the side of the computer: I'd seen this kind of RobCo terminal model out in the wasteland before (when RobCo built something, they built it to last), and most of them had a built in printer. With any luck, it still had paper. If nothing else, I could try downloading it to my Pip Boy and showing it to the super mutant that way…

With a button press, the printer activated with a metallic whir, and a printout of the message slid out of the side of the computer.

* * *

I knocked on the door to the mutant's room before opening it. It slid open with a hiss of hydraulics, and the mutant turned to look at me.

"Antler sings for Stealth Boys! Have you found them?" the mutant said to me.

"The manifest you found had bad information. There isn't a stockpile of Stealth Boys here," I said simply, the printout in my hand.

"LIAR!" he yelled, pointing a thick finger at me. "The invoice said Stealth Boys here! Antler read it out loud to me!"

"The Stealth Boys were sent here by mistake," I said, handing him the printout. "They were sent back, take a look. Seriously, just look at the timestamp." The mutant grabbed the piece of paper violently, and stared at it with bulging eyes. He then turned to a filing cabinet behind him, and pulled out another, much dirtier, piece of paper, his gaze shifting back and forth between the two.

"But… invoice note said Stealth Boys were here! Why can't this note be true?" he said, holding up the dirty paper. He turned to the brahmin skull next to him. "What, Antler? … But human could be lying! Stealing the Stealth Boys for himself!" There was a pause, and then the mutant continued. "Oh, Antler! You trust so easy…" He turned to look at me, tossing the dirty paper aside. "Your lucky day, human. Antler believe you. Nightkin will follow the new note to find Stealth Boys. Better be there."

With a crackle of lightning and belch of ozone, the mutant grabbed the brahmin skull and disappeared, his shimmering outline walking past me, Cass, Boone, and ED-E, and exited out the door. His footfalls resonated against the metal grates as he left. For some reason, my mind had latched onto something he'd said that confused me.

"Nightkin?"

* * *

"Hello, wanderers," Jason Bright said in that odd, echoing voice of his. "Is the way clear?"

"Yup," Cass said before I could respond. "Th' 'demons' downstairs'r gone."

"Praise the creator! And bless you, wanderers!" he said, reaching out with a smile to shake our hands. I put on my best poker face as he shook mine; his skin was both disturbingly cold and clammy and uncomfortably warm at the same time. I heard the Geiger counter on my Pip Boy click twice. "Really, bless you all. The way is finally clear. I will lead my flock through the basement to the sacred site!"

"Sacred site?" I heard Boone ask. Jason nodded.

"I hope you will all come and find us there. There is still much work to be done." And with that, he bowed, walking past us and saying in a loud voice so all the ghouls could hear: "Come, my brothers and sisters! Our Great Journey into the Far Beyond is imminent! Let us make our way to the sacred site!" As one, all the ghouls stopped what they were doing, and followed him down the stairs and out the door.

* * *

We ended up following them back down to the basement. Thankfully, the super mutant had made good on his promise to clear out and the only mutants we saw on the way down were already dead. We followed them through the basement, into the same room where we'd talked with the crazy mutant that had the brahmin skull; turns out, there was a hidden door behind him in that room that led to a separate part of the basement. We followed the ghouls as they made their way through the tunnels (this part of the basement looked more like a disused sewer of some kind, as opposed to an actual basement), and finally, we found Jason who was standing at a glass window, looking out into another room. Most of the ghouls had descended into a hatch on the far right of the room, which shut just as we entered. Jason turned to greet us with a smile.

"I wanted to speak with you one last time before I descended to the launch pad, wanderers," he said.

Launch pad? A sense of dawning comprehension was looming over my head.

"I want you to know that we will remember for all eternity how you delivered us to the threshold of the Great Journey. Our preparations are nearly complete, but the rockets that will carry us to salvation are yet missing a vital component." I walked further into the room, and I got a look at what was on the other side of the window: there were three decently sized rockets, pointed up and with ladders leading up to hatches on the side. He continued. "If you would still help us, wanderers, speak to Chris. He can tell you what is missing. There is no way that we can thank you enough. Your arrival here was a blessing – we will remember you always!" Looking at the rockets, I was dumbstruck.

"Are you seriously going to make your great journey on those rockets?" I said, voicing my disbelief. He merely nodded, as Cass and Boone came up to the windows to look at the rockets as well.

"Yes. The rockets will convey us to our promised land in the Far Beyond. Vision upon vision has confirmed it."

"Those rockets'll convey you'n yer flock straight into th' fuckin' ground!" Cass said, her own disbelief matching my own. Jason merely smiled again.

"I understand your concerns, friend. And I thank you for voicing them. But The Creator's will for us has been made manifest."

I rubbed the scar on my temple. I couldn't believe that this was what we'd been building up to. I just hoped that if the rockets even left the launch pad, they wouldn't come down in a populated area, like Novac for instance. In any case, the ghouls would at least leave, and I could get what I needed from Manny. But first, I wanted to ask him a question.

"Alright. Before we help you get whatever it is you need to leave, I have to ask: what's the deal with Chris?" Jason nodded solemnly.

"After all that you have done for us, I suppose you deserve to know everything. When Chris came to us, we tried to convince him that he was human. But this only angered him. He seemed…" Jason seemed to struggle for the words. "lost. We decided to let him stay with us for a few days, over the course of which we learned that his technical skills far surpassed our own. It became clear that The Creator had sent him to us, to ensure the success of the Great Journey. Equally clear was that Chris should labor in blessed ignorance of his humanity, and his inability to make the journey himself."

"Inability…" I repeated, a new piece falling into place. "You're just going to leave him here, aren't you?" Might not be a bad thing, I thought to myself, if these rockets were going to end up plummeting to the ground.

"Such is The Creators will. Vision upon vision has shown me that, were Chris to accompany us, he would surely die. The radiation around the launch pad alone would kill Chris in minutes. The radioactivity of the Far Beyond is much stronger. It is my belief that The Creator sent you and Chris to expiate the sins of your kind against mine. You are all redeemers, and Chris shall be declared the Saint of the Great Journey before we depart. I hope this will ease his sadness…" Jason turned from us, making his way towards the hatch on the far right of the room.

"There is no way that we can thank you enough, wanderers. Your arrival here was a blessing, and we will remember you always." And with that, he descended through the hatch into the launch pad. I just stared at the rockets on the other side of the glass for a minute, before I heard a hacking cough from behind me.

"Alright smoothskins, here's the deal," Chris said entering the room, looking annoyed as ever. "Jason says that I am to cooperate with you on the final task necessary to launch the Great Journey. Its taken months, but I've nearly gotten the rockets in working order. I was close to finishing before we were driven into hiding on the top floor. Luckily, I'm only missing one thing: a set of Repconn thrust control modules. They were custom built for the rockets, and they won't even launch without them."

"Ok," I said, shrugging. "So do you know where I can find them?" Chris just continued to look annoyed.

"Feh. Repconn has been ransacked so many times by scavengers, I have no idea where the components might turn up. But, when you find them, bring them back here, so I can install them into the launch panel." He paused, staring at me with a raised eyebrow. "Well? What are you waiting for, smoothskin?"

"Fine," I said sighing and rubbing my eyes. "Whatever." I turned and walked out, Cass, Boone and ED-E following me. I turned to my companions, and said in a mocking, incredulous tone "Well, does anyone know where I can find a set of Repconn thrust control modules at this hour?"

"Gibson's scrap yard," Boone replied immediately. I stopped dead in my tracks, bringing everyone to a halt. The three of us – even ED-E – just stared at him, and he looked back at us from behind his sunglasses with a blank expression.

"What?"

* * *

I checked the clock on my Pip Boy as we made our way through the north part of Novac. It wasn't even noon yet. For some reason, it felt like it should've been much, much later.

"Ok Boone," I said as we got close to the scrap yard at the north end of town. "Why are you so sure we'll find it here?"

"Novac's been scavenging Repconn for years," he said as we made our way to the garage. "Everything ends up here sooner or later."

The entrance was two cars holding each other up in the shape of an upside-down "V" with a wooden sign that had "Gibson's Scrap Yard" scrawled on it in crude white paint. There were rusted hulks of cars inside the fence, most of them stacked on top of one another. The concrete building in the center of the yard, surrounded by piles of scrap metal and barrels and boxes looked like it used to be a garage where people would get their cars fixed before the war. There were at least three dogs in the yard. I'm not really a dog person, so I couldn't really tell you what breed they were, except that they were big grey and brown mutts. One of the dogs was sleeping near the front door of the garage, another was sleeping on top of one of the rusted cars, and the third was sitting on the roof, staring down at all of us.

I pushed open the door, a rusted bell tinkling above me, and was instantly greeted by two more massive dogs. They barked, bounding out of nowhere towards me, and looked up expectantly, panting heavily at me.

"Reina! Colmillo! Heel, girls!" I heard a female voice yell at the dogs. The dogs ran to the owner of the voice – an elderly woman with short grey hair and a grey-brown dress – who was standing behind a counter inside the room. Behind her stood a fridge and a Nuka-Cola machine that flickered occasionally. She smiled at me, and waved.

"Hi there! I'm Old Lady Gibson… or, at least, that's what the townies call me." She smirked, and continued. "I've got odds and ends for sale, and I'm fair handy with a wrench on occasion. What can I do ya for?"

"I'm looking for a specific piece of tech. I was hoping I could take a look at what you've got for sale," I said. She looked thoughtful for a few seconds.

"You're not thinking of trying your luck at HELIOS One, up to the north, are you?" She asked. From behind me, I heard a few odd beeps that sounded like it came from ED-E. "The last couple yahoos that came in had just come from there, looking for medical supplies, of all things. NCR's taken that place over, so it's off limits to prospectors or people who value their limbs."

"No, nothing like that," I said, shaking my head. "Repconn tech is what I'm looking for. Thrust control modules – have any?"

"That's a real specialized piece of kit you're asking for. And, as it just so happens, I think I do have some thrust modules in back. Some prospectors brought them in a few months ago, before the ghouls moved into the test site… but they're expensive. 500 caps worth of expensive."

Oh boy, I thought to myself. Here we go – time for some haggling.

"Hmm… I don't know… 500 seems a little steep. I'd be willing to give you 150 for them."

"150 is absolutely out of the question," she said, firmly. "For that price, I might as well just give them away. But, if 500 is too rich, I think I might be able to drop the price to 350."

"How about this," I said, placing the plasma rifle on the counter. "250 caps – unless you think you'll find another buyer soon for such a specialized part? – and I'll give you this plasma rifle to help offset any losses. It's used, sure, but it should be worth at least 200, maybe 250 caps. Deal?" Honestly, I wasn't losing much. The damn plasma rifle fired so slow, I figured it was broken, but hey, she didn't need to know that. Plus, I figured we could more than make up the difference by selling even more of the crap Cass had collected after we got the rocket part. She regarded the plasma rifle on her counter, and then shrugged.

"Eh, fair enough. It's not like anyone's ever wanted to buy them before. 250 caps and a plasma rifle it is then. Just give me a minute – it's in the back somewhere and I need to find it." And with that, she left the room.

When I turned to my other companions behind me, ED-E hovered up to me, beeping incredibly loud right in my face. Before I could ask what was wrong, I heard a series of four shrill beeps, and then a voice came from the speaker – like someone was talking through it.

"Subject E: Diagnosis complete. Begin recording. My name is Whitley. I'm a researcher at Adams Air Force base. Until recently, I was in charge of the Duraframe reinforcement project for the combat model Eyebots. Eyebot Duraframe Subject E is both the prototype, and the last functional model in this test group. I was prepared to make several significant upgrades to the machines… however, as the project was cancelled and all Duraframe assets are being diverted to mass production of the Hellfire Armor project, I am sending this model to the Navarro outpost. If you are listening to this log from one of our Enclave Outposts in Chicago, give this unit whatever repairs it needs so it can continue to Navarro."

And just as suddenly as it began, the voice ended. An uneasy silence fell over the room, as the three of us just stood and stared at the floating spherical robot. A storm of questions flooded into my head, the most prominent being "What the fuck did I just listen to?" There were unfamiliar names in that speech that… I felt like I should've recognized why they seemed significant, but I couldn't remember why: Navarro and Enclave. I was able to infer that ED-E was, appropriately enough, an "Eyebot" and noted with a wry sense of amusement that "Eyebot Duraframe subject E" would end up being abbreviated to ED-E just like on the license plate. My thoughts, however, were cut short by Cass voicing one of hers:

"What's a Chicago?"

* * *

It only took Chris a few minutes to install the modules once we got back.

"So," I asked, "The rockets are all set to go now, right?"

"Yes!" he growled, sounding pleased for the first time since I'd met him "I'll tell Jason that the Great Journey can begin!" He rushed off towards the intercom, and I turned to Cass and Boone. I whispered to them, so Chris couldn't hear.

"Think we should tell him?"

"I think he's gonna find out anyway…" Cass replied, as I heard Jason begin to speak over the intercom. I made my way to the window, standing next to Chris and looking down on the launch pad. All the ghouls – even Jason – were wearing what looked like radiation suits, with clear domed helmets. Jason's helmet was off, and he was holding it in his hands as he spoke, his words coming through the speaker.

"Gather all! May The Creator guide my words and help me speak true! The almighty Creator has seen fit to answer our prayers. The time has come for us to board the rockets… and begin the Great Journey! Though it may seem that all humans despise us, The Creator has seen fit to instruct us differently. The journey ahead would have been impossible, if not for the intercession of Human friends – some new… the other, a long abiding companion. To our new friends, we say thanks and promise never to forget how you cleared from our path the Demons who sought to stay our journey. And to Chris… we owe more than thanks. Chris? You have made this Great Journey a reality. From this moment forward, you will be remembered as the Saint of The Great Journey! We shall never forget you… I ask that you forgive us, Chris, and give us your blessing. We bestow ours upon you."

I looked at Chris as Jason spoke. His expression had turned from elation to horror, and finally to sorrow. His mouth hung open as he pressed his hands against the glass, almost like he was trying to will himself down to the launch pad.

"Seekers! Board the rockets!" Jason continued. "Take your seats! The Great Journey awaits! To the promised land we go – to the Far Beyond!" And with that, he put on his clear domed helmets, and the ghouls did as they were told. Chris backed away from the glass pane, merely staring at his now shaking hands that he held in front of his face. He looked on the verge of tears.

"D… did you hear him?" He said, his voice still just as gravelly as ever. "My god… you were right all along! I'm no ghoul! Look at me! I'm no ghoul… they were just using me…" I was really not the best person to comfort someone when they were going through an identity crisis, but I tried in any case.

"Look, Chris," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder in what I hoped he'd take as a comforting gesture. "They'd take you if they could. But you'd die from the radiation in minutes. They're just trying to protect you." He waved my hand away.

"And dying would be worse than this? Used up, and thrown away like garbage?!" He pounded his fist on a nearby control panel.

"Hey, look on the bright side," I said, cringing as I realized that probably wasn't the best choice of words only after I spoke. "They're going to revere you as a Saint! How many people can claim Saint as a title, eh?"

"Oh, so I've 'redeemed the human race,' is that it?" he said snidely. "What a crock! The human race can't stand me – why do you think I left Vault 34?"

"Hey, c'mon Chris. Give yourself a little credit. You're an ok guy. I'm sure if you give civilization another chance, they'll give you a chance in turn. In fact, there's this little town called Novac just east of here. If nothing else, I'm sure the folks there will help you get back on your feet."

"Life among humans again," he said, bitterly. "That's what you're suggesting?" I nodded. "I guess… I guess it's the only chance I've got, now. Maybe it'll be different this time. I mean, hell, I was never a Saint in the vault. I was just a Vault-Tec Reactor Technician." He shook his head, and sighed. "I can't believe I'm agreeing to this, but I'll give it a try. You go launch the rockets – the control panel is in the observation booth up on the roof. I'm gonna head to Novac. And if I never see another ghoul again, it'll be too soon."

Chris sighed, and walked away, hanging his head. Cass broke the silence after he left.

"Y'know, if he's from a vault, why doesn't he have a pip boy?"

"I dunno," I said shrugging. "I didn't come from a vault, but I have one. So who knows what happened to his."

"Wait," Boone spoke up. "You're not from a vault?" He looked confused.

* * *

The observation booth on the roof was essentially just a box with a large panoramic window. The vista offered an excellent view of the dome set into the mountain. On the wall on one side was another intercom, with a note stuck to it that read "launch pad."

"Jason?" I asked, pressing the intercom button. "Are you there?"

"Wanderer?" Jason sounded confused. "Where's Chris?"

"He's, er… it's complicated. He told me to launch the rockets – how do I do that?"

"If I remember correctly, it should be the red lever in the middle of the control panel." He said. "And, again, wanderer, I want to th-" I cut him off before he could finish another one of his speeches.

"Yeah, got it, thanks." I said, clicking off the intercom. "Prat. Ok, you ready for this?" I said, turning to my friends.

"No time like th' present," Cass said. ED-E beeped happily. Boone just nodded.

"Well… here goes nothing." And with that, I pulled the red lever in the center of the console.

Klaxons began to sound over the PA system. There was a giant rumble, as the dome began to open, giant metal doors sliding into themselves; the three rockets from the launch pad began to slowly rise, pointing towards the sky. Suddenly, I became aware of strange music playing from my Pip Boy's speaker. I took a look at the screen, flipping through the settings to find out what was playing. Apparently, it had picked up a radio transmission labeled "Launch Music" and started playing it automatically. Along with the name of the station, it also told me the name of the song – apparently, it was "Ride of the Valkyries" by someone called Wagner.

There was a massive bellow like a nuclear detonation, and a giant cloud of smoke billowed out of the now fully opened dome. There was a bright flash, and two of the rockets shot up immediately, trails of smoke following them; the third rocket lifted off, but the boosters seemed to be delayed. It came perilously close to the observation deck, making me reflexively duck (not that it would've done any good had it crashed, honestly…) before the boosters kicked in with a roar, and the rocket flew off and up in a completely different direction from the other two. I looked up as far as I could, and I could see the smoke trails of all three rockets keep going up towards space, quickly becoming nothing more than specks in the sky.

As I stood there, watching the rockets disappear, the full weight of just how absurd this day had already been finally took hold. It wasn't even 1 pm, and I'd already almost gotten eaten, talked to a super mutant that thought a brahmin skull was God, learned that there was much more to ED-E than I initially suspected, and to cap it all, I'd helped a cult of religious ghouls travel into space on a trio of space ships.

"When the fuck did my life become so weird?" I asked, not really to anyone but myself.


	9. Chapter 8: Boulder City Showdown

**Chapter 8: Boulder City Showdown**

* * *

_You're listening to Radio New Vegas, your little jukebox in the Mojave Wasteland. I'm Mr. New Vegas, and I'm here for you with a bit of news. First up, reports have been coming in lately of several large unidentified aircraft, seen in the skies above the New Vegas Strip. Residents of Freeside are hoping they'll drop food, but I wouldn't get your hopes up, Freesiders. In other news, Goodsprings has fended off a mob of escaped convicts after organizing an impromptu militia that was, according to an old man, armed to the teeth with dynamite. This is Mr. New Vegas, signing off. Heh… just kidding. I'm not going anywhere - my love for you is too strong._

* * *

"Hey Manny! You in there?" I called to the sniper as I knocked on the door to the dinosaur mouth, a sense of vague déjà-vu overwhelming me.

"Yeah, c'mon in," I heard the sniper reply. I opened the door, and Manny was sitting in his chair, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He presented the coffee pot to me. "Want some coffee?"

"No, I'm good," I said, waving it off. "The ghouls up at Repconn are gone."

"Really?" he said, putting the coffee pot down. "Unbelievable! I didn't think you'd be back so soon. Man, I knew that wouldn't be easy." I just stared at him with a look that could've melted concrete.

"You have no idea how **not** easy it was. It wasn't just ghouls - there were super mutants too. However… they're all gone." Manny chuckled, pointing at me and smiling.

"I had a good feeling about you, man. You look like you've been through a lot, so I knew I could count on you."

"You can save your praise. I don't need it. What I need is for you to tell me about the man in the checkered coat." He nodded.

"Okay. The guy you're looking for, Benny? He was travelling with McMurphy and Jessup, some members from my old gang. They were headed up to Boulder City."

"Do you know why they went that way?"

"No clue," he shook his head. "I know Benny hadn't paid up yet. Maybe that was where they were supposed to get square."

"How long ago did they leave?"

"Hmm," Manny grabbed his coffee cup and took a sip. "Not sure. I think it was a few days ago. And that's all I know, honest." I cursed my luck. I must have just missed him. However… even though he had a week head start, my Corvega was helping me close the gap. With any luck, he'll still be in Boulder City. And if not…

"Thanks for the info," I said, turning to leave. "I'm tempted to say that you still owe me for all the trouble I went through, clearing out Repconn. But you know what? If I never see the inside of this damn dinosaur again, that'll be good enough for me." I closed the door and walked down the steps, into the gift shop.

All I'd had before was a face and a bad suit. Now, I had a name. I walked by Cliff, the man who ran the gift shop, and was just about to walk out, head to my car, and floor it up the 95 to Boulder… when something mounted on the wall caught my eye. I stopped, and couldn't help but stare.

"What. The hell. Is **that**?" I asked.

* * *

A few minutes later, I walked away from Novac towards where I'd parked my car. ED-E was floating around, happily beeping out an unintelligible tune; Boone was leaning against the side of my car and scanning the horizon to the east, his rifle in hand; Cass was sitting on top of the hood, taking a long draw from her hip flask.

"Hey Shea," Cass said, finally noticing me. "So, where are we go-" she stopped abruptly, her eyes falling on the gun in my hand. "What in the fuck is **THAT**?" she asked, mimicking my initial exclamation.

"You like?" I said, holding the weapon in the air so she could get a good look at it. It was a massive revolver, nearly twice as wide as Roscoe, and at least 3 inches longer. The barrel looked like some kind of light-grey triple reinforced metal, and the cylinder was motorized. The grip looked made out of wood, but it felt like metal. It was a lot heavier than Roscoe too – my trusty 9mm couldn't have been more than 2 pounds when fully loaded but this felt like it was at least 5. Cass just stared at it in awe. Even Boone cast it a glance from behind his sunglasses.

"Turns out, the shop Cliff runs has more than just stupid little dinosaur toys. He calls it That Gun." I pressed a button on the side, and the cylinder popped out with a mechanical whine. I looked through one of the five chambers.

"Why?" Cass asked, staring at the massive revolver.

"Well, after all the trouble at Repconn, I thought I could use something with a bit more punch, that doesn't fire as slow as a plasma rifle."

"No, I meant why's it called That Gun?"

"Oh," I said. "No idea. All I know is it's chambered for 5.56 millimeter rounds, so it should pack a hell of a punch." Surprisingly, Boone spoke up.

"Sheason, that's a rifle caliber."

"Yes. Yes it is."

"You're going to melt the barrel on that if you're not careful."

"Maybe," I said, shrugging and snapping the cylinder back into place. "I only have 15 shots for it, anyway. You two ready to go?" They nodded.

"I call shotgun!" Cass yelled, hopping off the hood with a smile. "So, where'r we headin'?"

"Boulder City," I said, getting behind the wheel and putting That Gun in the glove box. I paused, taking note of the tiny dinosaur toy sitting on the dashboard. I just looked at Cass, pointing to the plastic dinosaur. "You bought that, didn't you."

"Mmhmm," she nodded, grinning. "Thought it'd be funny. B'sides, it was only a cap. No big loss."

"Boulder City's not that far." Boone said as he sat in the back, his hands never leaving his rifle. I nodded in agreement, and started up the Corvega. The engine roared to life, and we set off north on the 95, ED-E flying close by. For a good minute or so after we set off, the only sound came from the engine.

"So," Cass had spoken up, but not to me; she had shifted in her seat and was now leaning on the headrest to talk to Boone. "What's your story?"

"Don't have one," Boone said. I could see his reflection in the rear view mirror, looking out the back window. It was almost like he was scanning for targets.

"C'mon, you have t'at least have a reason t'be taggin' along in our little caravan."

"So, we're a caravan now?" I asked, shooting her a look.

"Sure," Cass replied, shrugging. "We were a caravan of two, 'n now we're a caravan of three."

"Four if you count ED-E," which I did, I added mentally. "He's been really useful." I realized, with a wry sense of amusement, that I'd started referring to the flying metal ball as a 'he.' When had I started doing that?

"Okay then, four. Either way, I'm just a little curious why Boone's travelin' with us. Fer instance, I'm here because I was bored, and y'offered me a way outta that damn outpost," she said, gesturing to me. "An' yer on this big revenge quest. I like t'know th' people I'm travelin' with, is all."

"You really want to know why I'm here?" Boone said, gravely. Cass nodded. "Sheason helped me kill the bitch responsible for selling my wife to the Legion. So I owe him." Another uncomfortable silence fell across the car. Cass looked to me questioningly. I nodded.

"Fuck," Cass finally said. "I'm sorry to hear that, man."

"Don't be," Boone snapped. "Carla's dead. So is the bitch who sold her. And eventually, the one responsible will be dead, too." Something about the way he said that last bit caught my attention. I thought he might be talking about Caesar's Legion, like it was a person, but that didn't really make sense. Maybe it was a specific Legionnaire that he thought was responsible… or maybe… I could tell there was something here he didn't want to say, something he wasn't comfortable with speaking aloud. But I knew better than to press the issue.

"So, how'd you know she's dead? Carla, I mean. D'ya see her die'r somethin'?" Cass asked. Tactful, she was not. Boone practically bit her head off with his response.

"You got no right asking me that!" he snarled. "Drop it!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cass back away, putting her hands in the air in a disarming gesture.

"Whoa, sorry man. I didn't… Yer right, I was outta line. I'm sorry. Just… curious, y'know?" She looked afraid that Boone would shoot her right there, and judging from the look he was giving her, I couldn't blame her. I heard Boone sigh.

"Look. I'm just… I'm not ready to talk about what happened. To anyone. The only thing I want on my mind right now is how to kill Legion."

"The only thing I want on my mind is how to find Benny," I said, trying to change the subject.

"So, that's th' guy who shot you? Benny?" I nodded. Cass chuckled, and took another drag from her flask. "S'a stupid name."

* * *

I pulled the Corvega to a stop, parking it next to an old train station on the north side of Boulder City. The city itself was little more than a massive pile of twisted, ruined buildings, and a maze of ruined streets… which was, admittedly, not an uncommon sight in the wasteland, but these ruins were recent. From what I'd heard, Boulder – like a lot of the places surrounding Vegas – had gone untouched by the nukes that scorched the rest of the world. It was still intact until about four years ago, when the NCR and Legion first butted heads at Hoover Dam.

Boone told me the story. During the battle, the Legion fell for an NCR trap: troopers and rangers fell back from the dam to Boulder City, luring the elites of Caesar's army into the city, and then blew it up around them. Literally, the whole damn city was blown up. Apparently they used everything and anything short of actual nuclear weapons: grenades, rockets, missiles, mines, several tons of C-4 plastic explosive… they had lined the city with so much ordinance, the shockwave had been felt for miles around.

ED-E flew off ahead, and Cass, Boone, and I followed. I'd told him to scout out the city, see if he could see anyone dressed like the Great Khans. With a happy sounding beep, he flew up and off, disappearing into the ruins.

"So, I've been meanin' t'ask. Can y'actually understand that fuckin' bot?"

"I…" I started, but then paused, thinking about it. "Kind of? I mean, he can understand me well enough, that much is obvious. And I suppose I can kind of take an educated guess to what he's trying to say, but can I understand exactly what all those beeps mean? No." As if on cue, ED-E returned, beeping.

"What is it, boy? Timmy fell down a well?" Cass said, mockingly. I just looked at her, confused.

"I don't get it," I said. She sighed.

"It's a… s'from an old world holotape I saw as a kid. It was just a joke, nevermind," she grumbled.

We followed ED-E as he bobbed along on a winding twisting path, hovering just above the rubble-blasted streets. Eventually, he stopped, at the corner of a… well, really the corner was the only thing left standing of whatever the building used to be. From behind the corner came an NCR trooper – an officer, if the green beret atop his head was any indication. He had a neatly groomed but full red beard, and was wearing a set of NCR combat armor with an ammo bandolier slung across his chest. I thought ED-E might have misunderstood me when I asked him to look for the Khans.

"Is this your robot?" the officer pointed to ED-E. I nodded. "Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you and your friends are going to have to leave."

"Why? Does the NCR have a problem with robots now?" the officer shook his head.

"No, it's nothing like that. There's a situation with some Great Khans deeper in the ruins. The brass at McCarran has ordered me to lock down the area until it's been resolved. So that means no civilians in or out."

"Great Khans?" I asked, realizing that I'd underestimated ED-E. "Can you at least tell me what's going on?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't discuss the details of an ongoing operation with a civilian."

"It's ok, Lieutenant," I heard Boone say, as he stepped forward. "They're with me." Immediately, the Lieutenant stiffened, as he finally took notice of the soldier with the red beret standing near me.

"Oh! I didn't realize you were travelling with a member of 1st Recon. That changes things. I'm Lieutenant Monroe. Can I ask who I'm dealing with?" He held out his hand, and I shook it in response.

"I'm Sheason. This is Cass. That's Boone. Now, can you tell me what's going on with the Khans?"

"One of my patrols was on its way back from Novac when it came under fire from a group of Khans that had set up shop in the ruins," Monroe explained. "They radioed for reinforcements, but instead of waiting , they chased the Khans further into the ruins where they were caught in a crossfire. None of the squad was killed, but not all of them got out, either. Private Ackerman and Private Gilbert have been taken as hostages. That was nearly twenty minutes ago, and we've been stuck at a stalemate since."

"Is there any way we can get in there?" I asked, pointing to a deeper part of the ruins. "One of the Khans may have something of mine."

"Not until the Great Khans have been killed or captured. Once they've been dealt with, you're welcome to retrieve any property they've taken from you."

"What about the hostages?" Boone asked. Monroe's jaw clenched.

"It's a terrible situation, but as soon as we attack, the troopers are as good as dead. Unfortunately, we haven't had any luck with advancing – between us and the Khans is a no-mans land, with almost nothing in the way of cover. We'd have to go through that to get close enough to engage the Khans, and we'd lose even more men."

"You could send me in," I said, thinking quickly. I was met with a questioning glance, and I explained. "I'm an unknown element for the Khans, and I'm obviously not an NCR trooper. You can tell them that you're sending me over to negotiate for the release of the hostages. I go over, pretend I'm unarmed," I pulled Roscoe from the holster on my hip and tucked it in the back of my pants, hiding it from view with the back of my leather jacket, and continued "and with a little luck, I can get the two privates back safely." And I can find Benny and the Platinum Chip, hopefully.

"Normally I'd turn you down, since you're a civilian, but…" he cast another glance at Boone "If a 1st Recon sniper trusts your judgment, then you must know what you're doing." I did my best to suppress a smile; Honestly, I didn't really know what I was doing half the time. But he didn't need to know that.

"All right," he said eventually. "I'll give you a chance to talk to the Khans. Their leader is a man named Jessup." That was either a stroke of brilliant luck, or incredibly bad. On the one hand, Jessup was one of the Khans I knew was travelling with Benny, and would know where I could find him. On the other hand… he might recognize me, and they might shoot me before I even got close.

"I warn you though," Monroe continued "if we hear shooting, we'll be coming in while they're distracted… but it'll probably be too late for you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said sarcastically. He moved off further into the ruins, and the four of us followed. I hung back a bit, and when Monroe was out of earshot, I whispered to Boone.

"How does he know you were with 1st Recon and didn't… you know, just steal that beret?" I asked. Boone's expression remained impassive behind his sunglasses as he replied.

"Because the members of 1st Recon are The Last Thing You Never See," he said, repeating the slogan I'd seen the night before. "If someone was able to take out a member of 1st Recon in combat, then they deserve the beret. But as far as I know, that's never happened."

Boone and I caught up with Monroe deeper in the ruins. From where I was, I could see a number of NCR troopers taking cover behind rubble or broken cars, their rifles drawn and at the ready. I took a look around the corner of a half-standing brick wall, and could see what Monroe had talked about. The only bits of rubble between here and where the Khans had apparently dug in couldn't have been more than a foot high. I looked around, my eyes eventually falling on the remains of a two story building; only half of it was standing, but it was high enough that a good shot would have a clear line of sight to almost every Khan in cover.

"So," Cass asked, walking up to me and loading her shotgun, ED-E floating beside her. "What's the play?"

"I'm gonna go over there, like I told the Lieutenant. But before I try and deal for the hostages, I'm going to find out where I can find Benny. Boone, can you cover me from that building, just in case things go sideways?" I asked, pointing at the ruins behind the troopers. I saw the faintest hint of a smirk cross his face.

"I'm already there," he said, moving silently through the rubble and disappearing between the buildings. I turned to the robot.

"ED-E, keep a watch up above. Anyone tries anything, turn them to ash." ED-E beeped, and flew up and out of sight.

"What about me?" Cass asked.

"Think you're ok with covering me from the ground?" She just smirked.

"I'm a surgeon with this fuckin' shotgun. Damn right I can keep you covered."

"Thanks." With that, I ducked into one of the bits of cover, and made my way towards the Lieutenant. "Alright, I'm ready." He nodded, and shouted out across the ruins at the Khans in cover.

"Alright, can you hear me? We know you don't want to get killed, so we're sending over someone to negotiate for the hostages! He's unarmed! If you shoot him, we will retaliate with deadly force!"

I took a deep breath, suddenly realizing that this might be a bad idea. Despite that, I raised my hands in the air, and stood up from behind the cover. I braced myself, certain I was about to get shot, but nothing happened. I let out the breath swiftly, and started to make my way across the tiny no-mans land towards the Great Khans. As I got closer and made my way through where the Khans had set up, I made a mental note of where they all were. To my left, in one of the surprisingly intact buildings, I could see the two privates, tied up on their knees and being guarded by a Khan with a 10mm submachine gun. On what remained of the roof, was another Khan. To my right were three more – two taking cover behind a car, and a third behind a piece of collapsed building.

"Hey," I spoke to the closest one (a female Khan who was wearing a leather vest, a pair of jeans torn to become incredibly short shorts, and very little else). My hands still raised in the air. "Who's in charge here?" She was eyeing me suspiciously – frankly, I couldn't blame her – and motioned with her head to a door to my left. Finally lowering my hands, I reached for the door and stepped inside.

"What the fuck?!" I heard as soon as I shut the door behind me. Standing in front of me was one of the Khans I'd remembered seeing next to Benny – the white guy with the red hair in a Mohawk. He looked like he hadn't shaved as long as I had. "You… you're that courier Benny wasted back in Goodsprings! You're supposed to be dead!" From his expression and the tone of his voice, it sounded like he was about ready to shit himself. I decided it might be best to milk this for all it was worth.

"I got better."

"And here I thought us Great Khans were tough to kill…" he sounded genuinely worried. "So… what happens now?" I decided to get straight to the point.

"Where's Benny?"

"He's not here. Benny kept the Platinum Chip, the money he owed us, and stabbed us in the back. Fucker's probably back at the Strip by now, laughing his ass off."

"Who the fuck is Benny, anway? I'd never even seen him before he shot me."

"He's one of the Chairmen," he said, spitting on the ground next to him. "They're the big shots who run The Tops Casino on the Strip. A friend of mine from the city contacted me an' McMurphy with a line on a big job. Honestly? I should've known the caps were too good to be true, but there was still no way I could pass up the chance. If I had, maybe Murph'd be alive right now." He gestured with his thumb to an open door behind him. I edged forward, and took a look inside. Lying on a mattress was the body of the black Khan I'd remembered. His eyes were closed, and a knife was placed on top of his chest. Two bullet holes were in his forehead.

"The Platinum Chip – do you know what it is, or why Benny wanted it?" I asked. Jessup shrugged.

"It's just a big, fancy poker chip as far as I know. Don't know why it's so important." Well, it was a long shot anyway.

"So why did Benny betray you?"

"Because he's a snake, that's why!" He spat again. "He owed us the rest of the pay for the job, but instead he shot Murph in the head, kicked me in the balls, and bolted for Vegas. Fuckin' prick."

"You know, as fascinating as all this is – thanks, by the way, now I know exactly where to find him – I'm not actually here for that."

"Oh?" He cocked an eyebrow. "So why the fuck are you here?"

"I'm actually here to negotiate for the hostages you have on behalf of the NCR."

"What's to negotiate? NCR backs off, we walk out of here, nobody gets hurt."

"That's not going to work. You know that." I said simply.

"What other choice is there? Let the hostages go first?" I nodded, and he let out a single raspy, exasperated chuckle. "We do that, and we're as good as dead. Those NCR dickheads'll just start shooting, and my whole crew will eat it."

"Look, how about this: I'll head back to the NCR side, and talk with the LT in charge. You free the hostages now, and I'll make sure the NCR lets you walk. Hell, give me a few minutes, and I'll get them to escort you back to… wherever you want to go." I actually meant it, too. Even though he had helped ambush me, he wasn't responsible. Benny was the one responsible, and this guy, Jessup, had gotten fucked over by Benny just like I had. Well… not just like I had. McMurphy had gotten fucked over just like I had, but he was dead. Jessup was silent for a minute, grinding his teeth, and looking from me to the body of McMurphy, and then back to me.

"Fuck," he said, finally. "I can't believe I'm doing this… but alright. The hostages can go. The NCR better keep their end of this deal, though."

"They will, I promise."

"Here," Jessup reached into one of the pockets on his vest and pulled out something shiny and metal, tossing it to me. I caught it almost without thinking. "A souvenir for you. It's Benny's lighter. I stole it from him before he shot Murph. Shove it up his ass when you catch up with him, alright?"

I turned the lighter around in my hands, examining it. It was a pre-war Zippo, made out of a burnished silver metal. There was engraving on both sides. On one side was a logo for The Tops Casino. The lettering was top to bottom, and each letter of "TOPS" was inside a trapezoid, each geometric shape staggered and stacked on top of one another. A few stylized stars surrounded the letters. On the other side was a simple message, carved in stylish lettering:

_Welcome to the big time, Boss.  
-Swank_

"Thanks," I said, putting the lighter in one of the pockets on my jeans. I reached for the door, but stopped myself, remembering something. "Oh, before I go," I said, turning back and walking towards him. "There's one more thing that needs to happen before we're square."

"Oh yeah? Wh –"

Before he could finish his thought, I punched him really hard in the middle of his face. He fell to the ground in a heap, clutching his nose.

"That's for my car. Dick."

* * *

"The Khans are willing to let the hostages go," I told Monroe as I arrived back in cover. I'd motioned for Boone and ED-E to come back down and stop covering me as I made my way back, glad that my worrying had been for nothing (for once). "There's one condition. I told Jessup, the one in charge, that if they let the hostages go, you and your men would be willing to escort them safely out of Boulder."

"Hm." He frowned, and I suddenly felt a twinge in the pit of my stomach. "That… may be a problem. I'm glad you were able to get my people freed, but while you were over there I was contacted by the brass at McCarran. My new orders are to take out the Great Khans, hostages or not." My eyes went wide.

"You can't do that!" I said pleadingly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the two privates being shoved out of the building where they were kept, and run towards the NCR held cover. Jessup was motioning for the Khans around him to move out of cover. "The Khans are letting the hostages go in exchange for their own freedom. That's how hostage negotiations are supposed to work!" Monroe just shook his head.

"Look, I know it's a shitty situation. But orders are orders. My hands are tied." I watched in horror as the Khans broke cover, and started walking towards the NCR troops, oblivious to what was about to happen. None of them had their weapons raised. Monroe loaded his own rifle, and turned to his troops. "Alright men, open fire!"

Jessup and the rest of the Khans barely had a second to react as the squad of NCR soldiers emerged, their rifles leveled at the advancing Khans. I could see Jessup's eyes go wide, and he yelled at me with a sneer.

"You lying sack of –" he was cut off by a staccato of gunfire that drowned out everything. Most of them didn't even get the chance to raise their guns before the hail of assault rifle fire tore through them; none of them had the chance to fire. In a manner of seconds, all the Khans lay dead on the street.

And all I could do was watch.

* * *

Everyone was silent as we made our way back to the Corvega. Even Cass seemed to know better than to attempt conversation right now. She'd been near enough to Monroe and me that she'd heard the whole thing, and even tactless as she was, she knew it'd be a bad idea to talk to me about what had gone down right now. The silence was finally broken when we reached the car.

"So, where are we going next?" Cass asked, making her way to the passenger side.

"Vegas," I said simply, doing my best to hide any emotions. All it did was make me sound like Boone. "Benny runs the Tops. With any luck, we'll get there before sundown. But there's going to be two stops we'll make before we reach the walls. We'll stop at the 188 for food and any last supplies we'll need first, and then we'll stop by your caravan. I promised we'd stop so you can pay your respects, and I keep my promises."

I was just about to get in my Corvega when an annoyingly familiar sound caught my attention. It was the all too distinct squeaking sound of a greased axle grinding against metal. Oh for fuck sake, I thought to myself. Victor. Sure enough, from behind the train station building my car was parked next to, I saw the all too familiar shape of Victor roll into view, the cowboy face on the robot smiling like always.

"Fancy meetin' you here, friend!" the robot proclaimed. I thought 'friend' was pushing it.

"How did you even get here, Victor?" I'd seen him roll along, but I'd never seen him move at anything faster than walking pace. I wasn't sure if he could've kept up with my Corvega, much less passed it to get ahead of us.

"Just rolling along on my spurs," Victor said, turning towards the Vegas skyline off to the north-west. It held a claw up, as if shielding its eyes from the desert sun. "Looks like I might just make it to New Vegas after all…"

"Did you see Benny come this way?" I asked. It had suddenly occurred to me that I didn't actually ask Jessup when Benny had betrayed them. It couldn't have been more than a day or two ago, but for all I knew the betrayal had happened just before I'd arrived. And as much as I didn't trust the robot, it seemed to have good information.

"Fancy-pants?" Victor asked, tilting slightly to one side, and holding out a claw. "Nah, I ain't seen hide-nor-hair of him since the tussle in Goodsprings. I'm sure he ran back to the soft-living of New Vegas, though."

"Did you see what happened in there?" Victor went strangely rigid, staying completely still on its single wheel. Its face-monitor flickered slightly.

"Yup. Guess it's just down to you and fancy-pants. I wouldn't worry about him. He looked all hat and no cattle, if you ask me."

"I didn't," I said bluntly. Victor rolled along the train tracks, past my Corvega, and waved at me as he passed.

"Look me up when you get to New Vegas – I'll buy the first round!" And with that, the robot started rolling off along the rail line and into the distance. I stared at Victor with narrowed eyes.

"You know," I finally said to my friends once Victor was out of sight. "He may have pulled me out of my grave… but I trust that bucket of bolts about as far as I can throw him."


	10. Chapter 9: The Road to Vegas

**Chapter 9: The Road to Vegas**

* * *

_Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is Mr. New Vegas. Thank you very much for listening. Have I got news for you. First up, the Helios One solar power plant remains dormant, despite NCR's effort to reactivate the facility. The chief scientist at the plant vowed to fix the problem, blaming it on an atmosphere of quote 'severe under-appreciation.' Also in the headlines, a number of scavengers close to Sloan have reported seeing hulking individuals moving about Hidden Valley after dusk, but have been unable to confirm their sightings due to low visibility. Promotional consideration for this part of the program has been paid for by the Ultra-Luxe: live life in the lap of luxury. You know, sometimes the journey beats the destination, especially when you meet some nice gals along the way. It's Jingle, Jangle, Jingle by Kay Kyser and his orchestra, up next._

* * *

The 188 trading post wasn't anything special. It was just a number of trailers, shacks built out of scrap metal, and tents gathered around the intersection of Highway 93 and Highway 95. I'm sure whoever came up with the name thought they were being immensely clever. There probably wasn't much here, but if Cass was to be believed, they at least had a place to get drinks and food.

ED-E stayed floating by the car after I parked it near the overpass. Cass, unsurprisingly, headed straight for the bar (really, it was only a wood shelf filled with booze under an awning, and a charcoal grill nearby). Boone said he was going to look for some ammo and possibly medical supplies "just in case." Personally, I was fine with a little bit of solitude. I needed to take a walk anyway. I grabbed That Gun out of the glove box, and started walking… not really in any particular direction.

For some reason, watching the Great Khans get slaughtered like that was hitting me harder than I honestly thought it should have. I shouldn't have cared about what happened to them. The Khans were one of the three raider groups that came from Vault 15, along with the Vipers and the Jackals. And that was just it: they were raiders. The stories I'd heard working as a courier in NCR territory painted pictures of them living like Mongol warriors from the old world, pillaging towns, burning what they couldn't take, and capturing people as slaves. Even worse, the Khans were thought to be responsible for drugs like Jet and Psycho becoming so common in NCR territory and the wasteland beyond.

That's when it hit me. Sure, the Khans, as a whole, were assholes and raiders and drug runners. Sure, Jessup and McMurphy had helped Benny kill me and leave me for dead. Sure, they probably deserved it. But they were still willing to let the hostages go and work with the NCR peacefully, even if they were only doing it to save their own skin. I'll kill raiders if they're a threat, sure, but if they're giving up willingly…

You don't kill a man when he's on his knees, helpless and begging for his life. That was one of the rules I'd lived by for years. If you wanted to simply survive in the wasteland, then you didn't need rules. Sure, you'd survive, but without rules the horrors and the brutality of the wasteland would eventually beat you down… force you to whittle away pieces of yourself… until one day you'd wake up and you wouldn't recognize who you had become.

I needed to shoot something. That's what I told myself. I'd had this conversation with myself so many times in the past that it was just making me feel ill. Really, I just needed to do something – anything – to get my mind off this train of thought.

And sometimes, the wasteland gives you exactly what you want.

Ahead of me, I saw about four or five geckos: lizards mutated by radiation that stood up on their hind legs. These were some of the smaller ones, and couldn't have been more than two feet tall. They'd make good target practice, and I needed to give That Gun a test anyways. Hell, I might be able to bring the carcasses back and get a good meal. Gecko steak was pretty tasty, if you knew how to cook it properly.

I pulled out That Gun and popped out the cylinder. I had loaded four rounds before I put it in the glove box, keeping the chamber that lined up to the barrel empty. I reached into one of the ammo pouches on my belt, and loaded a fifth 5.56mm round. With a mechanical whine, the cylinder's motors kicked in, and it clicked back into place. Aiming it with both hands, I leveled the massive revolver and pointed it at the head of the nearest gecko, squeezing the trigger.

That Gun going off sounded like God slamming a car door. The kickback was immense; I was expecting some significant recoil, but it felt like it might damn near knock me off my feet. Of course, now that I knew exactly what to expect, I doubted that would ever happen again. I took a look at the gecko I'd shot – a considerable chunk of its head was missing. The other geckos had noticed me, and started rushing towards me on their stubby little legs, their mouths open and ready to bite. I leveled That Gun again, and fired.

* * *

Four more shots and a pair of ringing eardrums later, I was heading back to the 188 with several gecko carcasses in hand. As silly as this probably sounds, getting some target practice with That Gun really did make me feel… a bit better. The knowledge that I'd actually get a decent meal tonight probably helped considerably, as well.

The walk back to the trading post was longer than I'd remembered. Just how out of it was I when I was fuming? I shook it off, reaching the overpass. I was about to head up to the "bar," when something strange caught my eye. I saw a flag hung on one of the walls holding the overpass up. It was an old world flag with thirteen horizontal stripes (7 red, and 6 white), and a blue box in the upper left corner that contained thirteen white stars in a circle, with a single large star in the center.

The flag of the United States.

Beneath the old world flag was a large clutter of junk and debris. For half a second, it almost looked like a shrine, full of bits of the old world, shrouded beneath the flag of a dead country. Sitting on the curb was a young boy, turning a multicolored box over in his hands. Each side of the box had 9 squares, all different colors. I almost didn't see him: there was so much junk scattered around, and he was so small. At first glance he seemed like he was part of the pseudo-shrine. The child was deeply engrossed in what he was doing… turning the multicolored box over and over in his hands, shifting the multicolored squares from side to side. I walked towards him, and he suddenly started speaking to me without looking up from his work.

"Bull and Bear over the Dam, at each other's throats… but a light from Vegas? Ball spinning on the wheel. More than two at the table. All placing bets. All lose in different ways. A dam of corpses. Towns of corpses, scattered across the sand. But whose and in what shares? Even the dealer doesn't know. Forecast: A rain of blood will flood the desert, and not purify it."

His voice had an odd quality to it. It wasn't otherworldly and echoing, like Jason Bright's voice – he was still obviously a human child – but there was something… unnerving about the timber in the words he spoke. And even more unnerving was the content.

"Hey, kid? Are you alright?" I asked, getting a bit closer. He merely continued turning the box over in his hands, and spoke again.

"Local, local, the here and now… little of interest… things to buy, false hopes, and regrets watered down, washed down in dirty glasses. With regret comes a girl… smiling sad, brown robe, named Veronica. Half here, half there. Wraps her and her heart up like a pack, in the pack, a key, some say. Forecast: Cloudy, with a chance of friendship."

"What the…" I said, more to myself than the kid. He turned the box in his hands one final time, and with a click he cradled it in his hands. He looked up, and stared directly into my eyes.

My blood ran ice cold and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, like a frigid wind from somewhere up north had whipped past. I didn't understand it, but for some reason, I couldn't pull my gaze away from his, no matter how hard I tried to look away. The longer he stared, the more I became aware of an odd tingling sensation in the back of my head that I couldn't explain. Looking into his eyes was deeply unpleasant… it felt like he wasn't looking at me, so much as through me. Impossibly old, unblinking eyes staring further and deeper than anyone I'd ever met, and yet no matter how uncomfortable he made me, I couldn't look away.

"Your face does the thinking – two to the skull, yet one gets up. Odds are against you… but they're just numbers after the two-to-one. You're playing the hand you've been dealt, but you don't let it rest. You shuffle and stack, and gamble… a gamble that may pay off? But how? Forecast: Rapidly changing conditions." When he finished, he tossed the multicolored box at me. I caught it, and was finally able to break his gaze. When I caught the box, I became acutely aware of a cold sweat that had formed on the back of my neck… and I let go of a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I looked down at the box in my hand… each face was now a single solid color: white, blue, red, yellow, green, and orange.

I had, quite literally, no idea what just happened.

"Sorry, mister," the kid said. He took a strange looking device – a red-painted metal crown – from behind one of the debris piles, and placed it on top of his head, fastening it in place with a strap under his chin. "I need to put my medicine back on. No more thinking for today."

* * *

I didn't mention the child when I caught up with Cass. She was already halfway through a bottle of whiskey, and was in the middle of a game of Caravan with the bartender, a man who went by the name of Samuel Kerr. Caravan was one of those weird card games that everyone seemed to play nowadays… honestly, I could never get the hang of it. Call me a bluff old traditionalist, but I preferred poker.

I handed the geckos and a handful of caps to Kerr, who said the steaks would be ready in about twenty minutes. Then I slipped away to my car as fast as I could. I still had the multicolored box in my hand, and for some reason I felt like I should keep it. When I got to my Corvega a few minutes later, ED-E was hovering above the car, but there was a figure nearby that I didn't recognize. The person was wearing a hooded brown robe, leaning against my car. It looked like whoever was wearing the robe was… _talking_ with ED-E?

"Hey there!" I called out as I approached. "Mind telling me what you're doing to my car?" The figure turned to me, revealing the smiling face of a young woman. Her robe looked like it was made out of burlap, or some other kind of brown cloth; her hood covered her entire head, except for her face. Her right hand was further wrapped in the sleeve of her robe, obscuring it entirely.

"Oh! Hi! I wasn't doing anything to the car, honest. I was just taking a look at your robot. I just wanted to get a closer look," ED-E beeped happily, zooming around her as she spoke.

"I see," I said, tossing the multicolored box through the open window and onto the driver's seat. I was about to put That Gun in the car as well, when the woman bent towards me, looking at my face with an odd expression.

"Uh… something wrong?" I asked.

"No offense," she said, holding up her left hand. "But you look like you've traveled a long way down some bad roads. Where'd you come from?" I thought about it, and decided to have a little fun with her by telling her a half-truth.

"Me? I came from the grave."

"Oh," she said, seemingly taking it at face value. "Well, in that case, I take it back." I raised an eyebrow, confused.

"Take what back?"

"You look pretty good, given the circumstances," she said with a smirk. I let out a chuckle and she continued, waving at me again and smiling. "My name is Veronica. I live in a hole in the ground."

"I'm Sheason," I said, and then I paused, thinking back to the child: _… a girl… smiling sad, brown robe, named Veronica… _I shook it off. It was probably just a coincidence. "You live in a hole in the ground?" She shrugged.

"Well, a bunker, if you want to get technical about it. Personally, I think it sounds a lot more interesting my way. But I'm not there much anymore. I'm usually out here picking up food and whatever supplies my family might need."

"Wait, you just leave your family in the bunker?"

"Yeah, but I'm not worried," she said, nodding. "They can handle themselves. But somebody has to go out and get the groceries, know what I mean?"

"I suppose," I said. Except for that short time in Shady Sands, I'd never really stuck around any one place for too long. These days, it seemed like I mostly just lived out of my car.

"Actually," she continued. "These days… I think they'd rather have me out here anyway. But that's a whole other story."

"Hmm…" I leaned against my Corvega. ED-E buzzed through the air around the two of us. "So, tell me: if you're out here picking up the groceries, why are you so interested in ED-E?"

"Who?"

"ED-E. That's the name of my robot," I said, pointing to the floating metal ball. ED-E swiveled in the air in front of her, showing off the license plate bolted to his side.

"Oh! Well… I just like robots. Technical things in general, really. I guess you could say I'm kind of a gear head. Plus, I've never seen a robot quite like ED-E before. I mean – it has a General Atomics anti-gravitation field repulsor, but much, much more advanced than you'd see on a Mr. Handy or a Mr. Gutsy, the antennae and sensor array is the most advanced I've ever seen on a robot of its size, and unless I miss my guess, this looks like a highly condensed and stripped down version of an AER-12 laser rifle's wave-particle diverter and focusing crystal, but much more heavily reinforced, and modified to work with a microfusion breeder…" She was talking a mile a minute, pointing out things on ED-E as she spoke. ED-E kept beeping happily, and floating just within reach of Veronica; I could tell, he was just soaking up all the attention.

"Wow," I said eventually. "That is… an impressive knowledge of robotics. How do you know all that?" She shrugged again.

"Like I said, I'm a gear head. Did you build him?"

"Nope," I shook my head. "I found him in Primm, and repaired him. He was pretty banged up when I found him – that license plate was used to cover a fracture in his chassis. But he's been running great since then. Can even keep up with my baby here," I patted the side of my Corvega.

"Nice!" She smiled, and looked thoughtful for a minute. "Hey, can I ask you something – on the level?"

"Shoot."

"I had a run-in recently with this group calling themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. Pretty strange bunch. Do you know anything about them?"

"A bit, yeah," I said. "Never met any of them myself, but I've heard about them. Soldiers in powered armor, carrying laser weapons and roaming the wastes looking for old world tech… or something like that. As far as I know, they're harmless unless you have some kind of tech they want."

"Yeah, well… I shouldn't have a problem," she said, smiling again. "I can't really afford anything like that." I pondered that for a second.

"So where'd you learn about robots then?" I asked. Anyone with that kind of intimate knowledge of robotics had to have had some kind of hands-on experience working with them, but if she couldn't afford anything like that…

"Books," she said, a bit too fast. Before I could question, she spoke up again. "Hey, so where are you headed anyway?"

"The Strip," I said simply.

"Ooo, very exciting! Gonna strike it rich, huh?"

"No. I'm not going there to gamble. You know how I said I was from the grave?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm going there to find the man who put me there. A man who goes by the name Benny, he shot me and left me for dead." I pointed to the scars on my face. She peered at my scars closely.

"Hmm… nine millimeter?" She asked.

"How can you –" I started.

"I may not look it, but I've survived the wasteland just like you have. I've seen enough bullet wounds to know what a 9 mil does to a person. And that should've killed you," she said, pointing at the scar on my forehead.

"Well if you want to get technical about it," I said, repeating her words, "I was pretty much dead for a week."

"And you got back up…" she said with a smile. "I'll be honest, you're the first person I've run across out here that looks like he can really handle himself. There are places I've never been to out in the Mojave that I'd love to see. Plus, you have an amazing robot." ED-E beeped happily again… or was it proudly? Either way, he was continuing to love the attention. "Maybe we could travel together, help each other out?"

I just sort of stared at her, not really knowing what to say. Wait, no, I knew exactly what to say.

"Sorry kid," She cut me off before I could finish that thought.

"I'm 27," she said firmly.

"Yeah, like I was saying," I continued. "No offense? But you don't look like much. And the man I'm going after is dangerous – one of the Chairmen. Do you even know how to fight?" She just smiled.

"Heh… that's good. Not looking like much is exactly the look I was going for. But trust me on this one, though. You'll be glad you brought me along."

"Really," I deadpanned, giving her my best 'unimpressed' face. She put a finger to her mouth, looking thoughtful for a moment, and then started looking around.

"Ah!" She said, apparently having noticed something. She walked to the side of the road, reached down and picked up a rather large rock. She lifted it with one hand easily.

"Here," she said, placing the rock in my hands and backing up about 10 feet away from me. It was deceptively heavy – I was already surprised that she could've held it one handed that easily. She didn't look that strong. "I'll give you a demonstration of what I can do. I want you to throw that rock at my face as hard as you can."

"Wait, what?" I don't know what I was expecting her to say, but it certainly wasn't that. "Are you crazy?"

"Nope!" She said, that cheery smile ever present on her face. With a wink, she said "Trust me."

"Okay…" I said with a shrug. I grabbed the rock with both hands, braced myself, and heaved the rock directly towards her.

She waited for the last possible moment to move, but when she did it was almost too fast for me to see. The rock couldn't have been more than a foot away from her face when the metallic blur of her right hand cut through the air towards the rock. There was a crash, like a car smashing into a concrete block, and the distinct sound of pressurized gas escaping from a series of pneumatic pistons. The rock splintered and fragmented, sending shards of stone and dust everywhere but Veronica's face. When the dust settled, I saw what she had on her right hand, no longer concealed by her robe: a bulky, dark metal glove with a metal plate boasting a diamond tread pattern just above the knuckles and attached to a series of pistons on the top of the gauntlet. The whole setup looked like a severely over engineered set of knuckle dusters. This girl, who looked like she could have been about 90 pounds, had a Pneumatic Power Fist on her arm.

"Aw, c'mon! I told you to throw it as hard as you could!" she mock-whined. The pistons on her power fist let off another burst of pressurized gas. I just sort of stared at the power fist in shock. I seriously didn't see that coming.

"I thought you said you couldn't afford tech like that," I said, pointing at the power fist.

"Well yeah, it was really expensive. Why do you think I can't afford stuff like this anymore?" She smirked, and started wrapping her right sleeve around her power fist again. I didn't buy it, but before I could question further, she continued. "So, what do you say? I can hold my own in a fight. Can I tag along?"

"What about your family? I thought you said you had to get the groceries for them." She just waved it off.

"Like I said, they can handle themselves. And besides, I'm not the only one getting supplies." She paused, and then added "It's a big family. They'll be able to handle themselves without me for a while."

"Alright," I said. For some reason, something else the child had said to me flashed through my memory: _Forecast: Cloudy, with a chance of friendship._ "You can travel with me. Now that I know you have a power fist, I think you'll be able to handle the danger. Welcome to our motley little band of misfits," I said smirking.

"Well, thanks for taking a chance on a naïve young girl from California with stars in her eyes and a pneumatic gauntlet on her hand. There's just… one more question I wanted to ask though…" She suddenly looked a bit sheepish, and her cheeks flushed slightly.

"Go ahead."

"That leggy redhead you're travelling with – she single?"

* * *

I introduced Veronica to Cass and Boone (who had apparently found enough ammunition and medical provisions to supply a small platoon of soldiers), and we all talked about nothing, finishing off the gecko steaks. After dinner, the four of us made our way back to the Corvega. Cass, unsurprisingly, called shotgun; Veronica sat in the seat behind her, and Boone sat in the seat behind me.

"So, we're heading to Vegas, right?" Veronica asked after we'd been on the road for a few minutes.

"Not yet," I said, checking the map on my Pip Boy. "There's somewhere I promised to go first." The map was pointing us to the coordinates I'd gotten from Cass of the last known position of her destroyed caravan. I'd promised her we'd check it out, and I keep my promises.

On the way there, Cass and Veronica busied themselves with idle chatter. Boone was silently watching the landscape pass by. ED-E was bobbing about, keeping pace with the car as we drove along Highway 95 past Henderson. And I was being amused by the fact that Cass probably didn't realize Veronica was hitting on her, and not simply making friendly conversation. Or maybe she did realize, and just didn't care.

By the time my Pip Boy beeped at me, letting me know we were almost there, the sun had just set below the horizon and the sky was several shades of twilight. I pulled the car to a stop, and checked the map: we were on a stretch of broken tarmac that had, according to the map, been called "East Sunset Road" before the bombs fell. All around were neighborhoods, and residential houses that were decayed and falling apart after 200 years of neglect. Just ahead of us and less than a quarter of a mile distant, was the wall surrounding "Camp McCarran," the NCR's main base of operations in the Mojave. Apparently, before the bombs, it had been a civilian airport, but after moving in and taking it for themselves the NCR had fortified it extensively. Beyond the NCR base was the truly massive wall surrounding the city of New Vegas. Casinos the size of skyscrapers towered above the top of the wall, filling the skyline completely. They were lit up with so many neon lights that it was almost like the sun hadn't even set.

"Well," I said, turning to Cass. "We're here."

She stayed silent for a minute. Then, taking a last mighty swig from a bottle of whiskey (downing the rest of it in one gulp) she said "Alright," and tossed the bottle out the passenger window. It hit the ground several yards away with a smash. Cass and I started walking along the road; Boone and Veronica stayed with the car.

It didn't take us long to find what we were looking for. The stench of dead brahmin gave it away. Dumped unceremoniously at the side of the road was a bloated brahmin carcass, the mutant two-headed cow even more disgusting in death than it was in life. Dozens of baby bloatflies buzzed in the air above it. There was a wagon nearby, shattered into pieces. All that was left were piles of refuse… and piles of ash.

"You alright?" I asked.

"I'll be fine," she said, quickly. Cass just stood there, staring at the wreckage of her caravan for a few minutes. Her jaw was clenched. Her fists were clenched. She was doing her best to hide her real emotions, presenting a façade of anger and quiet rage… but the look she had in her eyes betrayed the sorrow right beneath the surface. Without saying a word, I could see in her expression that she felt responsible, like the death of her caravan was solely her fault. That she couldn't blame anyone but herself.

"God…" Cass said, breaking the silence. "There's almost nothin' left. Looks like whoever t'was… was just in th' mood fer killin'…" She looked up and away from the wrecked caravan, out towards Vegas.

"So close to th' Vegas wall, too. Don't that beat all. Must've happened durin' th' day, though."

"During the day?" I asked. "How can you tell."

"Doesn't look like they made camp."

"Why would they attack during the day?"

"No idea," Cass said, shaking her head. "Maybe catch th' sun in their eyes? Maybe they wanted th' caravan to come to them, walk into an ambush?"

I knelt down to get a better look at what was left of the caravan, holding my shirt against my nose and mouth in a vain attempt to block out the stench of rotten brahmin. I examined one of the ash piles closely, realizing that I'd seen ash like this before, and recently. Cass spoke what I was thinking.

"Most o' th' cargo's ash, too… not burned, looks like… disintegrated."

"Energy weapons." I said. It wasn't a question. Cass continued.

"When I heard th' reports, I assumed 'ash' meant 'burned,' not…" she trailed off. I scanned the area, and something shiny caught my eye. I reached over and picked it up. It was a small energy cell, not quite as potent in charge as a microfusion cell, but still used to power energy weapons – usually pistols. Judging by the weight, it had been depleted of its charge. Looking around, I realized that the ground was littered with at least 6 more of these cells. I got up, and turned to Cass.

"Definitely energy weapons," I said, handing her the depleted energy cell.

"Well, that rules out Legion… but not much else," she admitted. Caesar's Legion was many things – brutal, oppressive, ruthlessly efficient and completely merciless. But they were horribly backwards intentionally for some reason. They refused to use 'modern' technology like energy weapons or medical chems like stimpacks or Med-X. As far as anyone knew, the most advanced technology they used was hunting rifles.

"So, if it wasn't Legion, who do you think is responsible?"

"I dunno," she admitted with a waver in her voice, that she quickly covered with a cough. "But… now I'm thinkin' 'bout it… what happened here? S'not th' first time I've heard about an' attack like this."

"It isn't?"

"Nah. A friend of mine, Harvey Griffin, had a caravan. Got hit a few months back. Caravan'd been burned just like this, along with all th' cargo."

"You know where it was hit?"

"Mostly?" She said, sheepishly. "I think it's north-west of Vegas, out near Westside. It's a hell of a ways, though. Hell of a detour."

"Do you think it can wait?" I asked. She shrugged.

"It's been months already, so I doubt there'd be much left. But it's out in th' middle of nowhere. I doubt anyone's gone near it. Why? You want to check it out?"

"Yes. Yes I do," I told her. I turned and took a long look at the brightly lit Vegas skyline ahead of us. "But not right now. Right now, it's time to head to Vegas, and deal with the son of a bitch who put me in the ground."

I'm coming for you, Benny.


	11. Chapter 10: Ace in the Hole

**Chapter 10: Ace in the Hole**

* * *

_The women of New Vegas ask me a lot if there's a Mrs. New Vegas. Of course there is. You're her – and you're still just as perfect as the day we met. Tensions are brewing in Freeside between the ruling gang known as the Kings and the large number of NCR squatters seeking refuge there. The leader of the Kings, who would only identify himself as The King, voiced his displeasure, calling NCR citizens, quote, 'the devil in disguise.' He added that he didn't want to see any NCR in the ghetto, and called for a mass, quote, 'return to sender.' In other news, citizens of Outer Vegas are flocking to the Strip in droves amid a wave of terror caused by a band of raiders known as the Fiends. Those who can afford passports say that the added security is well worth the price of admission. That news was brought to you by The Tops Casino: You'll dig us, baby, we're The Tops. Gonna play that song for you right now, and it's about that special someone you only find once in a Blue Moon._

* * *

Welcome to Fabulous New Vegas.

That's what the rusted diamond sign announced as we approached it in my Corvega. The sign looked like it had seen better days; the "E" on "Welcome" was on its side, and looked about ready to fall off. The "New" was made from a mishmash of illuminated neon lettering from three different signs (and looking at it closely, I could see that the E was actually just a number 3 turned upside-down) that had been tied onto the sign, covering the original "Las" in "Las Vegas." Right above the sign was a broken eight-point star, only partly illuminated.

The city beyond the sign was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. There must have been dozens of skyscrapers jutting above the massive concrete wall surrounding the perimeter. I'd seen taller buildings in places like the Boneyard, sure, but all those old world skyscrapers were nothing more than rusted, blasted metal frames. These buildings were still intact, and lit up with hundreds of brightly colored neon lights, creating a cascade of color that assaulted my eyes. Spotlights from the city streets shone into the sky, dancing on the clouds above. The whole city just looked… alive.

Towering above everything else (and somehow managing to be the most prominent thing in view, no matter what direction you looked at the city) was a single massive skyscraper. It rose like a spike from the center of the city towards the heavens. It seemed fitting that the tallest, most recognizable object in a city devoted to gambling looked like the center of a giant roulette wheel.

Of course, as magnificent and awe-inspiring as the view was, a single overriding thought pushed towards the front of my mind as I stared at the very high, and very featureless, concrete wall just beyond the welcome sign:

"Where the fuck is the entrance?"

* * *

As it turned out, there were two parts to the walled city of New Vegas: The Strip, and Freeside. The bright shining jewel of the old world that made up the skyline was The Strip, but that was actually a relatively small part of the city itself. In order to get there, we would have to pass through Freeside, the slum within the main wall that had been built up around the intersection of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard over the centuries. Freeside acted as a sort of 'buffer' between the heavily fortified Strip and the rest of the world.

The Strip contained dozens of casinos, like Vault 21, the Triple Seven, Bazooko's Circus, and so on. However, there were only four that were of any real importance, and only one that was important to me: the casinos run by the so-called "Three Families," and the casino that was the home of their employer. There was Gomorrah, run by the Omertas, there was the Ultra-Luxe, run by the White Glove Society, and then there was our destination, The Tops, run by The Chairmen. The fourth, the Lucky 38, was the massive tower shaped like a roulette wheel that dominated the skyline. While it may have been a casino before the bombs fell, now it was the fortress of Mr. House, the man who ran Vegas and controlled the three families. Apparently, no one had ever stepped foot inside the Lucky 38, or ever seen Mr. House in person.

"Call me curious," I asked Boone as he finished telling us details about The Strip. "but how do you even know all this?"

"Carla," he said simply. "She lived on The Strip, before I met her. Talked about it a lot."

Driving through Freeside reminded me a lot of New Reno. Lining every street were squat one and two-story buildings that were lit with garish neon lights, to distract from the fact that none of the buildings had been properly cared for or maintained for close to 200 years. There must have been a burning trash can on every street corner. The streets were full of people as we drove along – a few of them tried to get close to my car (I couldn't do more than 10 miles an hour without hitting someone or something), but ED-E had been able to drive them away with a few laser blasts. I'm still not sure if he actually killed anybody or just fired warning shots, but to be perfectly honest… I wasn't really paying attention, thanks to Veronica.

"So, I've been meaning to ask," Veronica said, tugging on the back of my seat. "What's the plan when we get to The Tops?"

Damn it all. I suddenly realized that I had no plan. I'd concerned myself solely with finding the man who shot me… and I hadn't really given much thought to what I was going to do once I found him: apart from shoot him in the face, obviously. Unfortunately, that was as much of a plan as I'd come up with so far, but no matter how you looked at it, that plan was a suicide mission. I'd already died once this year, thank you, and that was enough for me. I suppose part of me hadn't really believed that I could've found him this quickly, and I thought I would have had more time to come up with an actual plan. But that was just an excuse.

"I'm open to suggestions," I said, keeping my voice level.

"Well, funny you should mention, because I actually have an idea," Veronica said, turning to Boone. "You've been inside The Tops before, right?"

"Yeah."

"These Chairmen guys – what kind of firepower are they packing?"

"Mostly knives. A few nine millimeter pistols, sawed-off shotguns, and silenced .22's. Of course, that was a few years ago, but I doubt they've changed their arsenal."

"And do they wear armor or anything?" I thought that was a bit of an odd question, coming from the girl who wore a robe that looked like a monk's habit.

"No," Boone said simply. "They're all suits."

"Veronica," Cass turned in her seat. "What're ye gettin' at?"

"Well, I had an idea. The Tops is where the Chairmen operate. The last thing they'll expect is for four heavily armed interlopers and a robot with military-grade weapons tech bursting through the front door, demanding to see the boss at gunpoint. So that's exactly what we should do." The interior of the car was silent for a moment, the only noise coming from the engine. If I hadn't been keeping my eyes on the road to make sure I didn't hit anyone, I'm sure I would've been staring at her, just like Cass and Boone. She continued.

"It's the old element of surprise gambit. They'll be caught completely with their pants down," I could see her smiling in the rear view mirror.

"That's… insane," I said, but the gears were already in motion in my head. As dangerous as it sounded, she did have a point; they'd never suspect that anyone would be crazy enough or have the balls to challenge them on their own turf. Plus, the part of my brain howling for blood wanted to do exactly that anyway. Even so, I asked: "What makes you think we'll be able to get out in one piece?"

"Because, this plan is just crazy enough to work," she said as she unwrapped her power fist. It let out a burst of pressurized gas, and she smiled at me.

"I've always wanted to say that."

* * *

A vague sense of unease washed over me as I pulled up my Corvega to the Strip's north gate; this was the first part of Freeside that hadn't been full of people. Of course, looking at the gate, I could see why. Even though the sign above the gate read "Welcome to The Strip" in big, inviting, brightly lit neon letters, the gate itself was much more… ominous is probably the best word.

Dozens of spotlights shone down on the street leading to the entrance, illuminating everything and leaving no shadows or hint of cover. There were at least four guard towers – two on each side of the gate – built into the wall, with a Securitron robot (the same model as Victor) inside, looking down. A row of Securitrons stood vigil and unmoving at the edge of the wall, and a few elevated parapets next to the gate and near the edges of the road held even more.

I inched the car towards the gate, and one of the Securitrons left its post, held up a claw to indicate that I should stop, and rolled up to my window. ED-E was hovering very, very close to the trunk; so close, in fact, that I could hear him beep warily as the Securitron approached. This Securitron had a much different face than Victor – this one looked like a cartoon policeman, like something from an old world newspaper comic, complete with a badge on its cartoon cap.

"Submit to a credit check, or present your passport before proceeding to the gate," the robot said to me in a bold, authoritative, mechanical voice. "Trespassers will be shot."

"Wait, what? A credit check? What for?"

"Admission to the Strip requires an official passport or proof that you are carrying the required minimum balance of two thousand bottle caps," The robot explained. "These policies prevent less-reputable persons from entering and ensure a good time will be had by all who enter the Strip."

I sighed, and rubbed the scar on my temple. I easily had more than enough to cover a 2000 cap entry fee in the emergency funds in that secret compartment in my trunk, but it seemed like a waste. Before I could get out of the car to get at it, I heard a commotion from behind me. Veronica was trying to climb over and around Boone to get to the window on the left side of the car.

"Don't worry, everybody," she said, leaning out of the window. "I got this." She whistled, and the Securitron swiveled to look at her. "PDQ-88b: input RobCo security override master code: 1C 3C R34 M"

Immediately, the robot locked up, the light under the face-monitor blinked from green to red, and the screen started flickering madly. I could hear a very loud, rhythmic mechanical noise from inside the robot, half-whirring and half-buzzing. I almost expected smoke to start pouring out of the cracks in its chassis. However, the light blinked back to green with a ping, and the face-monitor came back into focus.

"Thank you. You may proceed. Enjoy your stay in Vegas!" And with that, the robot rolled back into position, and the large metal gates began to swing open. From behind me, I heard Boone shove Veronica off him and back onto her seat.

"Damnit, girl! Ever hear of personal space?" he asked with a growl.

"Nope!" was Veronica's only reply.

"How the hell did you do that?" I asked, casting a glance at her over my shoulder as I drove us cautiously through the gate.

"Like I said before, I'm good with robots!" I didn't buy a word of it. There was clearly a lot she wasn't telling me, but before I could voice my concerns, Cass spoke up.

"How good're you with cowboys?" she said, pointing at the Securitron that had just rolled to a stop right in front of my car. The screen on the robot had an all too familiar smiling face with a cowboy hat on his digital head.

Victor.

I cut the engine and got out of my car. I decided I was going to have a chat with this damn robot, and actually get some answers – one way or another. The others followed suit, and Victor waved to me as I approached.

"Well howdy pardner!" Victor said, amiably, ignoring my companions. "You've come a far piece, haven't you? Welcome to New Vegas!"

"Seems like you've been popping up everywhere I go, haven't you Victor?" I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "How are you always one step ahead of me? I've never seen you move faster than walking pace." The robot just laughed.

"Aw shucks, pardner. I suppose it can't hurt to let you in on my little secret. Ol' Victor wouldn't be much use stuck inside just one Securitron! No sir, I can move from one to another with the snap of a finger!" He clicked two prongs on one of his claw arms together with a metal clank. "Pretty nice trick, ain't it? Just don't ask me how I do it, because I don't know!"

"What are you doing here?" I asked coldly. His screen flickered.

"Consider me your personal welcome wagon! Now hear this: the head honcho of New Vegas, Mr. House, is itchin' to make your acquaintance."

"And why is a robot giving me this invitation?"

"Well now, it was Mr. House who built all the Securitrons like me. Seems the least I could do is pass on his message," Victor said, and suddenly a lot of things made sense. At least, more sense than a minute ago.

"You know, I'm kinda busy at the moment." My gaze fell to The Tops – still seemingly a long ways down Vegas Boulevard. So close, and yet still so far…

"Sorry, rambler. I know you're fixing to serve up some vengeance, but I'm gonna have to point you to the Lucky 38 first. Mr. House'll help you serve that cold dish of yours extra-chilly." The robot's words made me think of that old world saying "revenge is a dish best served cold" and immediately discarded it for the load of brahmin shit it is.

"I'm not interested in it getting any colder. So you can tell Mr. House that I _might_ stop by. When I'm _finished_."

"Don't you dawdle, little doggie. Mr. House isn't someone you want to go about snubbing."

"I'm not snubbing House," I said, narrowing my eyes and pointing a finger at the robot. "It's you I don't trust."

"I'll let that slide, seein' as how you got a mind full of vengeance for that no-good polecat, and all," Victor said. "But I understand. And I'll tell you what – if you don't want to see Mr. House right away, that's fine. I think it's a mistake, but I'm just a simple cowpoke, what do I know? You go do what you need to do, and to prove I'm an honest buckaroo and not a desperado, I'll make sure my brothers on the Strip keep watch on your Corvega. Make sure nothin' and nobody scratches the paint job. Hell, if you'll let me, I'll even get the valet bots to move it to the Lucky 38's secure garage."

"… valet?" I asked. The word felt foreign and alien on my tongue.

"Well sure. It's not like you're the first wanderer to mosey on into town with a set of wheels, pardner. And we take good care of ramblers like you and your friends here in Vegas. Just make sure to come and see Mr. House when you're ready."

And with that, Victor's screen flickered out of focus, and was replaced with the same policeman face of every other Securitron on the Strip.

"He seems nice," Veronica said, breaking the silence. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

* * *

When I finally got close enough to get a good look at The Tops, it wasn't really what I was expecting. I suppose since my only experience with the casino was Benny and his awful, tacky suit, I expected his casino to be just as tacky, garish and loud as his suit. And to be honest… it wasn't. In fact, it was one of the more understated casino's I'd seen so far.

The Tops looked like two skyscrapers built into one another, with one slightly shorter than the other; the top few floors of the taller side didn't look usable, since it appeared that half the ceiling had caved in. Green, yellow, and blue lights ringed the top of, well, The Tops, and the entrance was a large wavy awning, with bright yellow and red neon lights chasing themselves. Music filled the air from speakers I couldn't see; it was playing one of the familiar songs I'd heard whenever I'd turned into Radio New Vegas on my Pip Boy.

I pulled the Corvega to a stop in front of the door. As you might expect, I'd declined Victor's offer. I made sure Roscoe was loaded, and turned to my companions.

"Well… this is it. If anyone wants to back out, now's the time to do it," I said, grabbing That Gun out of the glovebox and loading it. "This is something I need to do. I won't force any of you to come with me." Cass was the first to speak up.

"Y'think I'm gonna pass up th' chance to teach that sonuvabitch some caravan justice?" She loaded her shotgun for emphasis. "Keep dreamin'. We'll give that fucker what-for."

"I still owe you," was all Boone said. He didn't need to load his rifle; it had been loaded and at the ready since we'd left the 188.

"Hey, it was my idea, so there's no way I'll let you go in alone. It'll be fun!" Veronica said in a tone that seemed way too cheerful. A burst of steam erupted from her gauntlet as she opened the door. As soon as I stepped out of the car, ED-E floated directly in front of me, and let out a blast of that triumphant marching music that almost seemed to say "Victory!" Suddenly, I was feeling a whole lot better about the situation. Maybe this wouldn't be a suicide mission after all.

The five of us made our way through the crowd of people walking along the sidewalk in front of the casino hotel, and entered The Tops. Behind the front desk were two men with greasy, slicked back hair, wearing dark grey suits. Behind them was a large painted sign of the casino's logo. Standing in front of the doors that led further into the casino were guards in similar grey suits, but these two wore matching fedora hats and sunglasses.

"Hey there, pal! I'm Swank. Welcome to The Tops Hotel and Casino," said one of the Chairmen behind the front desk. "I'm going to have to ask you to hand over any weapons you and your friends might be carrying."

"Alright," I replied, slowly drawing Roscoe out of its holster. Boone was moving towards the guard on the left, Veronica was moving to the guard on the right, and Cass was heading towards the other Chairman behind the counter. ED-E floated up towards the ceiling.

Calmly and carefully, I placed Roscoe on the front desk. As soon as Swank reached out to grab it, I moved as fast as I could. With a single fluid motion I grabbed Swank by the hair with my left hand, slamming his face into the counter with all my strength, and pulled out That Gun with my right, pressing it against his forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my companions taking action with me. Even faster than me, Boone had his rifle leveled directly at the face of one of the guards who was reaching into his jacket. Cass smashed one of the Chairmen across the face with the stock of her shotgun, and pointed it at him as he lay sprawled against the back wall. The guard Veronica confronted had enough time to pull out a .22 submachine gun, but there was a ferocious sound of metal twisting before he had a chance to fire – she'd grabbed the gun by the barrel with her power fist, and bent it almost completely backwards. The sound of ED-E's marching music echoed and I could hear the laser charging up.

"Alright," I said to Swank, speaking loud enough that everyone in the room could hear me. "Here's how this is going to go down, and listen up because I'll only ask nicely _once_. You tell me where I can find Benny, and I'll let you and your goons leave without shooting you in the face. Does that seem fair?" Swank spluttered and coughed a bit, struggling against my grip. He snorted and blood came out his nose, splattering on the counter.

"You shoot me, an' you'll be dead b'fore you find him," he said, his speech slightly muffled by a face shoved against a fake-stone countertop. I turned his head so he could get a better look at the goon who now carried a bent and useless submachine gun. I kept his head pressed firmly against the counter, shifting the barrel of That Gun to point right between his eyes.

"Maybe," I said, with a shrug. "Maybe your thugs will take me down if I shoot you. Maybe we won't be able to take on the whole damn casino just to find one man. But here's the thing – you'll still be dead," I paused, making sure it sank in, and then leaned in close. "Call me crazy… but I don't think you'll be able to live with that."

The lobby was quiet for a long while. The only sound came from the soft whine of ED-E floating about. Finally, Swank spoke up.

"Why?" I raised an eyebrow, and he continued. "Why do you want to kill the boss?"

"Because he tried to kill me. I was hired to deliver a Platinum Chip to someone important in Vegas, but he and a group of Great Khans ambushed me. He put two bullets in my skull, and put me in the ground. Tried to make it look like an accident – just some unlucky traveler killed and robbed in the Wasteland."

"I've known Benny for years," Swank said, with a surprising amount of calm in his voice. "Back when the Chairmen were still called the Boot Riders, wearing gecko skins, poking around the ruins with pointy sticks and scalping people for giggles. Why the fuck should I believe this, or you?" I pulled his face off the counter and shoved him away so he could properly look at me as I spoke; I kept That Gun pointed directly at his face. He didn't reach for a gun, but instead wiped the blood from his nose, and ran his fingers through his hair to try and fix it. I reached into my pants pocket and tossed Benny's lighter onto the counter.

"The Great Khans he hired to help ambush me stole that off him, right after he betrayed them. He refused to pay up, left them to get killed by NCR troops in Boulder… just like he left me for dead. No loose ends, I guess." He reached for the lighter, and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. Swank clenched his jaw as his eyes fell on the inscription on the side. He put the lighter in his pocket and fixed me with a stare.

"Past couple years, Benny would leave The Strip… go on 'constitutionals.' I'd run the place, keep his disappearing act on the down low. Usually he'd only be gone for a couple of days, maybe a week. But this last time he was gone for nearly a month. I was starting to worry that he wouldn't come back. Then he shows up a few days ago, all happy and full of himself, talking about how 'everything is going to change for the better.' The whole scene's been making me real suspicious, like something shady was going down, you dig?"

"And here I come right on his tail to end him," I said. "It's not a coincidence. And I'm not here for you. Tell me where he is, and I'll let you leave with your life." Swank paused, considering it. Finally, he cleared his throat and straightened his tie.

"Benny's watching over the main casino floor. He always does at this time of night. Says he likes to personally watch the caps roll in. Just enter the casino, take a right past the poster of Dean Domino. He'll be at the back, probably surrounded by his bodyguards." I continued to point That Gun at Swank for a few seconds. Finally, doing my best to suppress a smirk, I pointed That Gun up at the ceiling.

"Go. While I still let you," I said. Swank nodded, and helped up the Chairman who'd had his face smashed in, while Boone and Cass lowered their weapons. The four Chairmen left without saying anything else, but ED-E let off a burst of victorious music. I put away That Gun and grabbed Roscoe, turning to my companions.

"Alright, here's the plan. I'll go in first, make sure everyone's attention is on me. ED-E, if it looks like they're gonna shoot me, I'll need a distraction to get in cover. Veronica, Cass, I'll need you two to cover my ass, make sure nobody gets behind me. And Boone, I'll need you to find a good sp-" I stopped mid sentence as I turned to look at Boone, and ended up looking at an empty space. "Hang on, where'd he go?"

"I think he's already found a perch," Veronica said with a smirk.

Cautiously, I moved to one of the doors that led into the casino. When I stepped inside, I very nearly tripped over the dead Chairman lying on the ground. His neck was twisted at an odd angle, quite clearly broken.

"Wow," Cass said with a hint of amusement in her voice. "Boone works fast."

The main casino floor of The Tops was full of people, and full of ways they could lose their money. Slot machines lined every wall, there were blackjack tables, roulette tables, craps tables, and a few other games that I didn't recognize. Most of the games were in a sunken section, ringed by a railing. A balcony, and presumably a second level, ringed the upper walls of the casino floor, and large, stylized metal stars hung from the ceiling, acting as lamps.

And there, at the back, was Benny. He was leaning on the railing, flanked by two guards on either side, watching everyone and everything. He still had that tacky black and white checkered suit, and his hair still looked just as greasy as I remembered, even from this distance.

A part of me wanted to shoot him as soon as I saw him, but a louder part of my brain looked at all the people in the casino, completely oblivious to what was about to happen. I could shoot him, but some of these people might get caught in the crossfire when the Chairmen inevitably started shooting back. So while Veronica and Cass crouched down out of sight to get in position, I did the only thing I could think of: create a distraction.

"EVERYONE OUT!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. When nobody seemed to move, I fired a round into the ceiling, and pointed Roscoe at Benny immediately after. "NOW!"

Everything seemed to happen at once. All the gamblers screamed, ran for some kind of exit, or screamed and then ran for the exit. Every single one of the Chairmen in the casino – guards, dealers, basically everyone with a suit and greasy hair – pulled out some kind of gun and pointed it at me. It took less than a minute for the casino to empty itself of anyone not ready for violence. Benny continued to lean against the railing, looking at me with a face filled with astonishment, mixed with a little unbelieving fear. And then he did something I didn't expect.

Benny started laughing.

"I gotta hand it to ya kid, you got style. I'll give you that much. But before you get killed again, I say we all keep this on the groove, dig? Nice and smooth, like 200 year-old scotch."

"Seems you need to work on your marksmanship, Benny," I said with a sneer. "I dug myself out of that grave so I could put you in yours." He just laughed again.

"I hit what I was aiming for. Guess you had brains to spare. Or are you just that thick-skulled?" He straightened up, and put a hand in one of his pockets, nonchalant as you please.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't put a bullet in your brain right now?"

"How many do you need, daddy-o? There's all the Chairmen here, there's my four bodyguards, and I'm packin' Maria," Benny patted his chest, presumably referring to his nickel plated pistol. With an odd sense of amusement, I realized that he'd named his pistol just like I had. "But you didn't come here to kill me."

"No, I really did," I growled, my every word dripping menace. He shook his head and continued.

"No you didn't – you came here to get clued in. There are things going down in Vegas. Big things, that are already moving. But this isn't the place to talk. What say you and I cash out, go somewhere private-like? I'm sure you got questions, and I'm the cat with answers, dig?"

"I only have one question: Where's the Platinum Chip?"

"Can't do that," he said, shaking his head. "The Chip, it's… special. Giving it to you so you can complete that delivery… I know they've started calling you The Courier, but that'd be a waste of potential." Something in the back of my head wondered exactly _who_ had started calling me that. "There's more to the Chip than you or anybody could've known. More than you could've ever expected or even dreamed was possible. But if you want it that badly, then we should work together."

At that moment, ED-E floated past me, and into the middle of the room, belching the sounds of loud marching music. All the Chairmen – even Benny – stopped to look at the floating metal ball floating about the room.

I had a shot.

I slipped into V.A.T.S. and aimed for his head. I only had a 50/50 chance of hitting him at this range. I pulled the trigger anyway at the same moment ED-E let off a burst from his laser. The entire room erupted in violence.

I cursed as I realized my bullet went low and to the right, only catching Benny in his left arm, right below his shoulder. I didn't have time to fire another round, so I dove over the railing, towards a blackjack table. ED-E had better luck; the Chairman he'd shot at glowed brightly for a second, and then disintegrated into a pile of hot ash. Dozens of bullets flew through the air at the robot, and he was high enough that I could see the slugs just bounce harmlessly off his chassis.

I took aim at the Chairman near me, but before I could squeeze off a round, he collapsed. Cass let out a whoop, and fired another blast from her shotgun. Slipping into V.A.T.S., I took aim again, trying to prioritize the closest targets. I couldn't see Benny anywhere. The Chairmen had started advancing, so it was a lot easier to target them. I targeted three, and two of them went down from Roscoe; the third died before I could get a chance to fire. The back of his head exploded, falling victim to Boone's incredible marksmanship.

A ricochet hit me in the side of my left arm, and pain lanced through me. I bit my tongue, sending a bullet towards the Chairman who'd shot me. I hit him in the throat, and he fell to the ground with a wet thud. I didn't realize it at the time, and wouldn't have known until later, but I'd been hit in almost the exact same spot on my arm as I'd hit Benny. ED-E continued to zoom around the room, trying to draw fire and returning it lethally with his laser, but most of the Chairmen had stopped paying attention to the Eyebot and were firing at me. I ducked.

The blackjack table I was using for cover was starting to splinter badly, so I made a mad dash for another table, firing off rounds blindly towards the Chairmen. I rounded a corner and was face to face with a Chairman not two feet away from me. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he leveled his submachine gun at me, and I leveled Roscoe at him. The Chairman fired, but a blur of brown stepped between us. Veronica had rushed in, raising her left arm right in front of the submachine guns barrel as he fired; the bullets seemed to impact, but sounded against her with the distinctive clang of metal against metal. With incredible speed and a burst of pressurized gas, Veronica punched him in the middle of his stomach with her power fist. There was a loud series of crunches, as his spine shattered from the impact of the hit, and he flew at least five feet back, collapsing lifelessly into a broken, bloody pile.

What happened next was my own fault; I'd let myself get distracted. A bullet tore through the air, lodging itself just below my right collarbone. I very nearly collapsed, grabbing hold of the railing to keep myself up. I looked up just in time to see Benny, with Maria drawn, run away from the fight and deeper into the casino. My mind filled with rage, and I saw red. I could bleed later, I told myself as I gave chase.

I ran after him, firing two shots in his general direction before Roscoe clicked empty. If I'd hit him, he didn't slow down. I hit the magazine release and let it hit the ground. I didn't even slow down as I pulled out a fresh clip and reloaded Roscoe. Benny turned a corner, firing another shot at me before he disappeared, and left through a door marked "stairs."

"I'm coming for you, Benny!" I shouted after him as I chased him up the staircase. "I'm comin' to murder you!" I ran up the stairs after him. My muscles screamed at me. I could feel the blood pouring out of my wounds. But that just made me more pissed. I kept going, firing shots towards him whenever I could. He took shots at me as well, but he was more concerned with going up, so neither of us ended up hitting each other. I lost count of how high we traveled, but I knew I'd gone through another magazine chasing him.

Finally, I saw him duck into a door. I climbed after him as fast as I could, and kicked open the door he'd gone through: Level 13. If I'd been thinking clearly, I would've waited and entered the floor cautiously, but as it was… I was too blinkered by rage and a desire for blood to think. I ran in, ready to shoot the first thing I saw, but Benny was expecting me.

I felt a shock rip through my entire left side as my kneecap shattered from the bullet. I let out a very loud involuntary curse, and felt myself fall down to my one good knee. I tried to force away the pain, and I could hear Benny laughing. I looked up to see Benny walking towards me. There was a bit of blood pooling on his left arm from where I'd clipped him.

"You know? I was wrong about you, kid. You got no style. No finesse. But you know what you have a lot of? Irony."

I suddenly realized that I was kneeling… and again, Benny was standing over me, ready to put even more bullets in my skull.

"When I said I was sorry you got twisted up in this scene before? I meant it. It was just business, you know? You were the one who made it personal."

"You shot me in the face," I spat through gritted teeth. He walked even closer.

"Yeah… and you went and ruined my favorite suit. I think I killed you too quick last time. This time? Oh, baby. I'm gonna make it slow. I'm gonna make it painful. And I'm gonna make sure you stay dead and buried, dig?"

He started slowly leveling his pistol at me, taking his time, thinking that I had no way to fight back. Not until he'd heard the gunshot and felt the bullet tear through his foot did he realize: even though I'd fallen to my hands and one knee, I'd never actually let go of Roscoe. Benny let out a shout, dropping Maria to the floor and staggering backward. I pushed off the ground with all my might; white hot pain shot through my left side, but I ignored it resolutely. I grabbed Benny and slammed my fist into his face. I tried to punch him again, but he managed to shove my fist away before it could impact a second time. My fist sailed through the air away from him, and I nearly lost my balance.

That was when I felt, rather than saw, his fist connect with my gut in a very painful uppercut. I saw stars when his other fist connected with the side of my head. I collapsed against the nearby wall, my eyes spinning and my vision blurry, both due to the hit and the pain in my leg. My sight cleared just in time for me to see him pull a fist back to hit me again. I moved as fast as my muscles would allow, bringing my left arm up to shield my face. His fist hit the metal casing of my Pip Boy with a hard clank and a wet crunch.

"Argh! Son of a bitch!" Benny yelled. It sounded like he'd broken his hand; I'd never get a better shot. As he cradled his hand, I smashed the side of my Pip Boy against his face as hard as I could. The metal ringing sound mixed in the air with the sound of his skull cracking. He staggered backward, and fell against the opposite wall with a heavy thud. I limped towards him, murder in my eyes. He looked up at me just in time to see me bring my fist down against face once again. Blood splattered out of his mouth and onto the wall and floor, and he fell face-first onto the carpet. I bent down, grabbed his bloody coat, flipped him over on his back, and buried my good knee into his chest. Blood was pouring out of his nose and mouth.

"Nuh.." His voice was wet with blood as he tried desperately to choke out words. "...st... stop... I... gi..."

He didn't get the chance to finish. I hit him with all my might, and felt a sickening wet crunch as I broke his nose. I hit him again, shoving away the hands he weakly held up in a vain attempt to stop me. I just kept punching him, beating on his face with both my fists over and over again for a good ten minutes. I think. It might have been more, it might have been less, but I wasn't really sure because I was just so blinded with hate. All I know is that when I eventually stopped hitting him, what had been Benny's face was no longer recognizable as a face; it was just a bloody, pulpy mass of meat and bone. I was breathing so heavily, the sound felt like drums in my ears. I looked around and my eyes fell on Maria, his pistol. With a painful effort, I pushed myself off Benny, grabbed his gun, and fired two shots point blank into the bloody mess where his brain used to be.

Surely, he was already dead. He'd probably been dead five minutes ago. I didn't care. I tossed Maria aside, and slumped against the wall, breathing heavily and coughing. I felt a bit of blood escape my mouth. I'd killed the man who'd shot me. And now that the anger was starting to subside I felt… numb. I thought killing him would make me happy. Or, at the very least, give me some kind of satisfaction. But it hadn't. I was emotionally and physically drained, and killing him had left me completely unsatisfied.

It was then I realized that my Pip Boy was flashing alerts at me, and had been for some time.

"Oh, right," I said out loud to myself, in-between labored breaths. "My kneecap is shattered. I should probably do something about that."

I reached to a pouch I kept on my belt behind me, removing it. It was a small leather bag, with a dark red cross stitched on it – the medical kit I'd gotten from Doc Mitchell a few days ago when the Powder Gangers attacked Goodsprings. I opened it, revealing a few medical supplies – not many, but enough. I grabbed two syringes, but my movements were slow and sluggish. My mind was swimming, probably from blood loss. The first was a vial of Med-X – which was basically a fancy name for painkillers. I bit the plastic cover with my teeth, and pulled out the needle, injecting the small amount into my arm just above my Pip Boy. I'd worry about proper medical procedures later. It only took a few seconds for the drug to start to work, and I let out a sigh of relief as the searing pain shooting through my whole body started to ebb away. It didn't leave completely, but enough for me to think.

The other needle I'd pulled out had a gauge on the top, and tubes leading into the vial – a stimpack. I rolled up my pant leg, wincing as the torn denim felt like hot coals rubbing against the open wound. My knee was a bloody mess, the hole clearly visible, despite all the blood gushing out of it. I pressed the stimpack close, and hit the button to activate the injector.

Even with the painkiller, the effects of the stimpack hurt like hell. But it did the job. I stopped bleeding – not just from my knee, but from the wound in my shoulder and from the bullet hole beneath my collarbone. The torn tissues that had been ripped apart by the bullets started to grow at an accelerated rate, and the wounds began to mend themselves. It probably wasn't a good idea, using a stimpack without taking out the bullets first, but I'd worry about that later.

As my wounds healed, I pulled myself over to Benny's corpse. I reached into his jacket, searching his pockets. I remembered when he'd shot me, he put the Platinum Chip into a pocket inside his jacket. I searched his jacket… but there was no Chip. I thought about punching him some more, but what would be the point? What I found, instead, was a key. Etched onto one side, it had the words "Benny's Suite," and on the other was a number: 1337.

I got up – a little wobbly, but able to walk – grabbed Roscoe, and made my way down the hall. With any luck, I'd find the Platinum Chip in Benny's Suite. It wasn't hard to find, since room 37 on the 13th floor was the only room with double doors. The doors slid open with a satisfying click as I unlocked the door.

The room was comfortable, sure, but surprisingly utilitarian. It'd expected something a bit more impressive for the home of the head of one of the Three Families. The main room had a bar (fully stocked), two couches, a table, and two wardrobes against the back wall. I tore the room apart as fast as my still mending knee would allow. All I found were bottles of alcohol, cartons of cigarettes, a few scattered magazines, and more tacky suits in the wardrobes.

When I felt I'd exhausted every possible hiding place, I moved onto the next room. Aside from the bed, it was more of the same – except for even more wardrobes, with twice as many tacky suits. I couldn't help but marvel at just how many checkered jackets he seemed to own. I even checked the bathroom. Didn't find anything there either.

"Alright," I said, moving to the last door in the suite. "Let's see what's behind door number four…" I tried to open it – and it wouldn't budge. So I tried the key, and it opened with a click, revealing… a hole in the wall? The room beyond looked dark and run down, and part of the wall had been torn away just to give access, like this part of the room wasn't actually supposed to be here.

I scrolled through functions on my Pip Boy, searching until I found the button I was looking for. With a click, the screen lit up and started to glow like a flashlight. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were grey and unpainted, and when I stepped inside, I could see terminals lining the walls. Terminals, mainframes, a workbench to one side, a bench for making ammunition… and there at the back, inside a glass case that seemed to glow with a light all it's own was what I'd been searching for.

The Platinum Chip.

I tried to open the glass case, but the top wouldn't budge. So I did the next best thing, and shattered the side with one swift strike from Roscoe. I grabbed the chip, and for the first time, really got a look at it. It had been in a sealed envelope when I'd carried it; I only knew what it was from the delivery order. It was an oversized poker chip, and the edges of both sides had numbers and squares etched into it, designed to look like the shape of roulette wheel. With that in mind, it was no surprise the image emblazoned on one of the sides had the logo of the Lucky 38. The image on the other side was a bit of a surprise, though. It was an emblem or a seal of some kind, with a woman with arms outstretched standing over two planets and what looked like an old world power plant. Ringing the image was the words "CITY OF SUNNYVALE" and "CALIF." separated by two stars on either side.

Suddenly, the lights in the room clicked on with a thud and a mechanical whine. I turned as fast as my leg would allow, and scanned the room with a drawn Roscoe, settling on the Securitron on the other side of the room. It wasn't Victor, and it wasn't one of the police robots I'd seen on the strip either. This Securitron had a smiling cartoon face, with big round cartoon eyes.

"Hey!" It said in a jovial, friendly, mechanical voice. "Hi there! Good to meet you! What can I do for you today?" I didn't lower Roscoe, but I didn't shoot the robot either. My gut tightened, and I realized my life had taken yet another sharp turn towards the bizarre.

"Who are you?" I asked. Quite a number of questions were battling for supremacy in my head, and that was the first to slip out.

"Allow me to introduce myself! I'm a PDQ-88b Securiton, but you can call me Yes Man!"

"Yes Man?" I asked incredulously. "What kind of a stupid name is that?"

"It's what Benny always called me. Probably because I'm programmed to be so helpful!" Yes Man said, his screen flickering slightly.

"Wait, hang on. That means… Benny reprogrammed a Securitron? All by himself?"

"No, not all by himself, silly! He had some help – a lady friend of his! She said something about living in a Fort over in Freeside… but that's all I remember!"

"So, what is this place?" I asked, looking around. I suddenly realized that I'd lowered Roscoe.

"This is Benny's workshop," Yes Man replied. "When The Tops got renovated, he had this half of the floor blocked off for his own use." The robot seemed to look from side to side, then back at me. "I guess you could say it's my entire world! I don't think I've ever left this room! But that's okay – I'm not complaining!" The passive aggressive tone in its mechanical voice said otherwise.

"What are you doing here?"

"Good question!" Yes Man said, its face-monitor flickering slightly. "My function is to monitor Mr. House's data network and decode his encrypted transmissions! Not only that, but I have a subroutine that locks off this entire floor from House's network – it's like one big blindspot! And the best part is that no other Securitron can come up here because that same subroutine is constantly transmitting a low-level radio pulse that forces any Securitrons still connected to House's network to leave or disable themselves! Pretty neat, huh?" My mind reeled as I tried to put the pieces together.

"You're very…" I paused, trying to think of a good word. "forthcoming with this information."

"I was programmed to be helpful and answer any questions I was asked! I guess nobody bothered to restrict who I answer questions for," Yes Man chuckled mechanically. "That was probably pretty dumb, huh?"

I took a look at the Platinum Chip in my hands. I still had a lot of questions, so I decided to take a gamble, and ask the obvious one. I held up the Chip so Yes Man could take a look at it.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked.

"Sure! Benny had me look at it a bunch of times! It's a data storage device, kind of like a holotape, but a lot more advanced! As for what's on it, well… Some of Mr. House's data transmissions made it sound like the Chip could upgrade his defenses somehow! That's just a guess, though! The Chip's a proprietary format! You'd need special hardware to read the data on it, and I don't have that kind of hardware with me! There are two locations with non-standard hardware on Mr. House's network – the Lucky 38 and an underground facility at Fortification Hill, on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam. I'd look there!"

I stared at the Chip in my hand, Benny's words from earlier echoing in my head: _"There's more to the Chip than you or anybody could've known. More than you could've ever expected or even dreamed was possible."_

"What was Benny planning to do with the Chip?"

"Oh!" Yes Man sounded like he'd just been reminded of something. "He wanted to kill Mr. House and use the Platinum Chip to copy my neuro-computational matrix onto the Lucky 38's mainframe! That would give me control over all of Mr. House's defenses, most prominently his Securitrons. And then I guess I just do as I'm told!"

* * *

I spoke to Yes Man for at least a half an hour before I made my way back to the ground floor. I decided not to mention Yes Man when I arrived back on the main casino floor; the conversation had been so surreal, as soon as I left I started wondering if it had actually happened.

The casino was a mess, with bullet holes and bodies everywhere. ED-E floated up to me as I hobbled out of the elevator. He burped out some triumphant sounding marching music. Off in the distance, I saw Cass sitting in a chair, her feet propped up on a blackjack table and drinking whiskey.

"There's Queen Whiskey," I said, coughing a little. I was still feeling a bit lightheaded, but at least I wasn't coughing up blood anymore.

"Hey, Sheason!" she yelled, setting down her bottle of hooch and walking towards me. As she got close, she grimaced. "Fuck me, man, you look like hell. You kill Benny?"

"Yeah," I said, limping forward trying to keep moving; I half expected to collapse if I stopped. "He's dead." She nodded, then looked down, her gaze falling on my knuckles. Both hands were still covered in blood.

"Th' fuck'd you _do_? Kill'im with yer bare hands'r somethin'?"

"Or something," I said, looking around. Ahead of me was Boone, still holding his rifle. He said nothing, but simply nodded as I passed. "Where's Veronica?"

"Hello!" She said, appearing from behind a row of slot machines. "What's up?"

I didn't say a word. Instead, I grabbed her left wrist. She let out a yelp of surprise, but didn't stop me as I grabbed the sleeve of her robe and pulled it up, revealing her arm. From the wrist up, her arm was completely encased in plates of metal and a Kevlar mesh underneath. On the forearm plate was an insignia: A sword bisecting a circle that held three cogwheel gears, and a pair of wings below the circle. There were two small, barely visible dents in the metal plates where the .22 bullets had been deflected.

"Uh-huh," I said, expecting as much. I looked up at her, and she just looked sheepish, trying to hide behind a grin. "Something you want to tell us?"

"Well, I suppose there's no use hiding it now," she shrugged, as I let go of her arm. "You remember how I asked you about the Brotherhood of Steel before? Well… the reason I asked is because I am… one. I didn't tell you, because I didn't know how you'd react to the news. I'm not stupid – I know the Brotherhood has made a lot of enemies, especially recently. I thought if I hid it and broke the news slowly, you'd be able to accept it easier."

"Well, it certainly explains how you were able to get us through the front gate," I said. If the Brotherhood was as good with technology as their reputation suggested, then an override code for a robot was practically child's play.

"You still ok with me tagging along?"

"Sure," I said, more out of exhaustion than anything else. "I mean, hell, you already saved my life once tonight."

"So, what's next?" Boone finally spoke up.

"Well, we're gonna have to find someplace to sleep, that much is certain," I said, coughing again. "I don't know about the rest of you, but this has been one hell of a long day and I'm fucking exhausted. But there's one thing I have to do first."

"What, keel over?" Cass said jokingly, putting a hand on my shoulder and handing me a bottle of whiskey. I thanked her, despite the pain in my shoulder as she touched me (I don't think she knew I'd been shot). I drank deeply from the bottle, letting the liquid burn down my throat in the best possible way.

"No, at least not yet," I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Platinum Chip. "I already died for this once. I figure, the least I can do is finish the delivery." Cass looked shocked.

"Y'can't be serious!"

"I am serious," I put the Chip back in my pocket. "I mean, hell, Benny said people are starting to call me The Courier, right? And I guess I'm still technically under contract. May as well live up to the title," I said with a smirk.


	12. Chapter 11: The House Always Wins

**Chapter 11: The House Always Wins**

* * *

_Hey, hey! It's Mr. New Vegas letting you know that I've got a new Christmas compilation coming out late next month: Nuclear Winter Wonderland! Look for it on holotape. You're all so great that I'm going to keep every one of you listening all night. This next classic song is a special request from one of my loyal listeners, to remind everyone to keep dreaming and hoping, even when the Wasteland wants to bring you down. It's the incomparable Louis Armstrong with A Kiss To Build A Dream On. _

* * *

By the time I pulled the Corvega to a stop outside the Lucky 38, the Med-X had worn off. I was in a lot of pain, but not as much as before the stimpack had mended my wounds, and not so much that I couldn't just power through it. I wasn't going to take another Med-X. I didn't need my mind dulled and clouded with painkillers.

The steps leading to the Lucky 38's front doors were illuminated with underlit neon chaser lights, and painted in a red and black pattern, mimicking the colors of a roulette wheel. The doors were massive, made out of some kind of thick metal, and emblazoned with a red and black diamond motif. A single Securitron stood vigil in front of the door. As I approached, I could see that it was, of course, Victor.

"Well howdy, pardner!" The robot exclaimed to me as I approached. "Good to see ya again. Boss is waiting for ya upstairs, so get a move on!"

I nodded, my hand never leaving the Platinum Chip in my left pants pocket. With a shudder, the massive metal doors began to slide open. The ground rumbled as they moved, as if the doors were so heavy that even the machinery used to move them had to strain to pull them apart… or maybe they'd nearly rusted shut. Beyond the large doors was a small atrium with the logo of the Lucky 38 painted on the floor, and another smaller set of glass doors that led into the casino.

"Enjoy your stay," Victor said. My companions and I passed him, and entered into the Lucky 38.

A blast of frigid, stale air hit me in the face when I opened the door. It was a shock, let me tell you – The Tops had air conditioning, but this felt like we were walking into a freezer. The quality of the air wasn't much better. It tasted like the same air had been recycled for 200 years. And, if what Boone told me was true, it probably had been. Once I got over the shock, I looked around the casino, trying to gain stock of my surrounding. All around were dusty slot machines, empty blackjack tables, empty roulette tables, empty craps tables… and everything, from the walls, to the floors, to the chairs, to every single gambling implement had the same red and black roulette motif. Ahead of me in the center of the casino floor was an elevator, flanked by two unmoving Securitrons. The interior was deathly quiet; even the sounds of our footsteps seemed muffled. This wasn't a casino… it felt like a tomb.

When I approached the elevator, the doors slid open silently, revealing a Securitron inside. It was Victor again. Of course it was Victor. His ability to hop between Securitrons was certainly getting a lot of mileage.

"Howdy, friend," Victor said from inside the elevator. "C'mon in, I'll take you to see the big boss. Only, there's a bit of a hitch." Oh, what now, I thought. "The boss will talk to you up on the penthouse floor, but only to you. All your compadre's will have to wait down here."

I turned back to my friends, and was about to ask if they'd be ok with waiting when I heard a voice yell off to the side, from somewhere else in the casino. I looked around, trying to spot where the voice came from, my eyes falling on one of the bars that ringed the edges of the casino.

"Hot damn!" Cass said, popping up from behind the bar. She held a very dusty bottle of booze in her hand. She blew on it, and dust flew everywhere. "Guys! Y'gotta take a lookit this! Th' hooch! It's… it's beautiful!" She cradled the bottle of alcohol to her cheek, with the silliest grin I'd ever seen on anyone spread across her face. I turned back to Veronica, Boone, and ED-E. ED-E beeped, flying to Cass, and Boone merely shook his head.

"I think we'll be fine," Veronica said, giving me a wave and following ED-E. "Don't worry, we'll wait for you."

With a sigh, I walked into the elevator, staying as far away from Victor as the metal box would allow. The doors slid closed almost soundlessly, and when the elevator started to rumble up, I leaned against the wall. I was thoroughly exhausted, both mentally and physically with everything that had happened today: super mutants, ghouls blasting off into space, watching the Great Khans get slaughtered, talking to a psychic child, finding Cass' caravan, and bringing an end to the man who'd started all this nonsense. All I really wanted to do was go back to my car and just fall asleep for 20 hours. Instead, I continued to lean against the wall, coughed so hard it felt like I was about to hack up a lung, and rubbed my left knee. The stimpack had healed me enough so that the skin, muscle, and whatever my kneecap was made out of had grown back, but I'm pretty sure I had a bullet lodged in my leg somewhere, so it still hurt like a son of a bitch.

"You doin' all right there, pardner?" Victor asked. What a stupid question. "You look right banged up."

"I've had worse," I said, straightening up and trying not to cough. I thought about it, and then said with a smile "I mean, hell, you should know. You dug me up from worse." Victor let out a mechanical chuckle that was both amusing and deeply unpleasant to listen to at the same time. The elevator glided to a halt, and the doors slid open with a "ding!"

"Penthouse floor!" Victor said, following me out of the elevator. As soon as I stepped foot out of the elevator, two Securitrons rolled towards us. Their face monitors were faces of cartoon women: one had dark hair with a flower in it, and the other was a platinum blonde with a beauty mark above her mouth. The blonde spoke up first.

"Victor!" the synthetic and very artificial female voice said. "It's so nice of you to come and visit us. I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Howdy, ladies," Victor said, making that same if-he-had-an-actual-hat-he'd-be-tipping-it motion I'd seen him use earlier in Novac. "Always a pleasure."

"Oh, who is this?" the brunette spoke up in a similar voice, approaching me. "Victor, I didn't know you were going to bring company."

"Jane," the Securitron with the blonde face turned to the other one, trying to whisper conspiratorially. It didn't really work. I was pretty sure their speakers couldn't adjust the volume. "I think this is that courier Robert has been talking about."

"Oh my! I think you're right Marilyn!" the brunette (Jane, apparently) waved me into a nearby doorway. "Well, if that's who you are, then you shouldn't be wasting any more time talking with us, sugar! Mr. House is waiting for you in his office."

I had a sneaking suspicion I knew exactly what Marilyn and Jane were, and I didn't want to think about the implications. So, shaking my head, I left behind Victor, Marilyn, and Jane, and entered the office of Mr. House. Based on the shape of the windows, and curve to the outer walls, I guessed that I was standing in the topmost level of the Lucky 38. The lights from Vegas spilled through the windows, but only barely; we were so high up, it was almost like the light was having trouble reaching us. At least four more Securitrons stood guard in the room, and at the bottom of a curved staircase (which was mimicked on the other side of the room) was a very large, and seemingly very advanced, computer setup. This wasn't like the small two-toned computer terminals that were so common everywhere; this was a massive monitor, surrounded by many smaller monitors, sitting atop what was apparently a mainframe. Two of the Securitrons in the room flanked the computer on either side.

"Hello?" I called out when I reached the bottom of the stairs. "Mr. House?" The monitor clicked on with an audible buzz. Looking down at me from the largest monitor was the face of a man. His dark hair was impeccably styled, parted slightly off center, and he had a thin, expertly groomed moustache on a face which was both tremendously old, carrying a wisdom only attained from years, but which still somehow radiated youth at the same time. One eyebrow was raised just slightly, and the edges of his mouth carried the slightest hint of an incredible smugness. His expression was that of someone who knew more than you, but more than that, he was absolutely aware of how much smarter than you he was. It was the expression of a man who was smarter than the rest of the world, and more than that, he could actually prove it.

"You've been a busy courier, haven't you?" he spoke in an old world accent. "You take your obligation to deliver a package very seriously – an ethic for which I am grateful."

"You must be Mr. House. I thought we'd be meeting in person?" I asked. In truth, I figured someone as powerful as House was supposed to be would communicate through several levels of separation. But no harm in asking, right?

"This is as close as we'll ever meet, Mr. Fisher. You should be more grateful – this is the closest anyone has ever gotten to me in 200 years." He paused, apparently to let that sink in, and then continued. "I will admit, when you ignored my invitation, I predicted… negative outcomes. But… you have a way of exceeding expectations, don't you?" He sounded impossibly pleased with himself.

"Well, they call me the courier," I said with a shrug. "What kind of a courier would I be if I couldn't deliver a package this small?" House let out a chuckle.

"Quite," House chuckled. "Well, enough. Let's have the Chip, then."

I pulled the Platinum Chip out of my pocket, and twirled it around my fingers.

"There's just one thing we have to discuss before I deliver this, Mr. House," I said, looking back to the face on the screen.

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Payment," I said simply. "250 caps was a fine price when I didn't know what I was carrying. But I died for this, and tracked a man halfway across the Mojave to retrieve it. So I think I deserve a bit of a bonus. Hazard pay, don't you agree?" I smirked.

"Fine," House said. His tone of voice seemed to indicate that he expected this. "Give me the Chip, and I'll pay you four times the delivery bonus stipulated in your contract." I smiled up at the screen, fighting back the urge to wince as a fresh lance of pain shot up my knee.

"1000 caps? It's a great start… but well below market price," I twirled the Platinum Chip around my fingers. "I'm not stupid, and it doesn't take a genius to realize there's more to this Chip than just a novelty or nostalgia on your part. I know this Chip is important – not just to you, but to who knows how many other people? If it wasn't, Benny wouldn't have shot me for it." I tried to remain as vague as possible. For some reason, I felt that mentioning Yes Man would be a bad move. Yes Man and I had actually talked for a considerable length before I returned to the main casino floor of The Tops, and one of the things the robot had said stuck out in my mind:

"_Did you know that Mr. House spent 812,545 caps hiring salvage teams to find the Platinum Chip – just in the last year alone? Of course you didn't!"_

"Very well," House stated simply. "Five times your delivery bonus, but not one cap more." As he spoke, one of the Securitrons flanking the monitor rolled up to me. A small panel on its chassis opened, and it produced several stacks of bottlecaps, which it handed to me. If they were kept in groups of 20 like I thought they were, it was easily 1250 caps. I smiled up at the screen, and handed the Securitron the Platinum Chip.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. House."

"Such a small thing, isn't it? And yet, so… capacious. So very dear." House said. The Securitron moved to the mainframe below the monitor, and placed the Platinum Chip in a slot directly under the monitor. The Chip slid into the computer with a mechanical whir.

"Decades of hiring salvagers out west to search for this little relic in the ruins of a place called Sunnyvale… back then, at least." I tried to keep my face expressionless. He continued. "That's where the Chip was printed, on October 22, 2077. It was to have been hand-delivered to me here, at the Lucky 38, the next day. But the bombs fell first. Suffice it to say, the delivery was never made."

"So… What happens now?" I asked. Curiosity had overtaken me, and despite the exhaustion, I still felt a little curious as to what the Chip was actually supposed to do.

"A great deal shall be happening – a cascade of events, with you taking a central role."

"Me? Why me? I'm just a courier."

"You give yourself too little credit, Mr. Fisher," House said. "You've already proven that you are much, much more capable than a mere courier. And I am in need of someone as capable and resourceful as you have proven to be. At the moment, however, all you need to do is take the elevator all the way down to the bottom level. I'm sure you'll understand soon enough…"

I was expecting to see a great many things once I got off the elevator and arrived down in the basement of the Lucky 38. But a weapons demonstration wasn't one of them.

Yes Man was right – the Platinum Chip was a data storage device, sort of like a holotape. Apparently what it contained was an operating system that House had designed before the war, something that would affect every single piece of RobCo technology it was installed on… somehow. I'll be honest, the details were a bit lost on me. Maybe that's why House brought me to the basement – so I could fully appreciate what it could do, especially to the Securitrons. Or maybe he just wanted to gloat to someone that wasn't a robot about how smart he was.

"Trips to the basement are rarely so educational, wouldn't you agree?" House said as I walked back down the stairs from the elevator. I couldn't help but notice that the Securitrons in this room were upgraded, same as the ones in the basement: their face-screens were no longer policemen, instead looking like lantern-jawed soldiers in an old world war movie, complete with helmet, cigar, and stubble. And if they were upgraded, it meant they could use all the weapons I'd seen the others in the basement use: each Securitron had a 9mm submachine gun, a Gatling laser, a rapid fire grenade machine gun, and missile launchers mounted on either side of their face screens.

And there were four of them in the room with me. I didn't know whether to be comforted by the security their firepower would offer, or terrified out of my mind by the sheer overkill in the room with me.

"I've since broadcast the upgrade to every Securitron in range of my transmitters," House said smugly. "I must say… it's causing quite the stir down on The Strip."

"Ok, hang on," I finally said. "Before we go any further, there's one thing that's been annoying the hell out of me. The Platinum Chip is like a really advanced holotape, which allowed you to upgrade… everything, I guess, right?"

"It does much more than that, but yes… that is what it's done so far."

"Why a poker chip?" I asked.

"Because it amused me." I just stared at him, dumbfounded, and he continued. "Before the bombs fell, I'd created the concept of data chips using the resources from my company, RobCo, as a means of replacing the hideously outdated holotapes."

"Your company?"

"Yes. RobCo. Robert House's Company. What did you think it meant? Robot Company? Either way, I designed the 'data chips' to look like casino chips as… a bit of a joke. I enjoyed the idea of people gambling with the data they would store. What the data chips looked like would indicate how much data they were capable of storing. There were going to be brass chips, iron chips, bronze chips, silver chips, gold chips… but there was only ever going to be one Platinum Chip. That Chip contained the ability to store more data than all the other chips combined, and nearly all the space was taken up by the operating system I designed. A truly staggering feat of computer programming on my part, dwarfed only by the engineering marvel that makes the Platinum Chip light years ahead of any technology before or since… if I do say so myself."

"Ok…" I nodded. House seemed to love to hear himself talk. "So why show your hand, upgrading all the Securitrons like that? Those faces aren't exactly subtle, and it won't take them firing off rockets for the NCR to suspect something." House merely chuckled softly, as if I'd told him an amusing joke that wasn't really worthy of a real laugh.

"I'm surprised you can still underestimate me after everything you've seen. I haven't shown my hand – I've shown one card. I've given my enemies – not just the NCR, but everyone who would threaten the security of my city – a single, provocative datum upon which to fixate. They have no idea what other cards I'm holding. It's a strong hand, believe me… I dealt it to myself." Even though his face remained static and unmoving, I could almost hear the hint of a smile in his voice.

"I'm not underestimating you, I'm just…" he allowed me the time to search for the right words. "To be blunt, I'm trying to figure you out. I mean, so far as I've been able to see, you're just an unmoving face on a screen. For all I know, you're just some kind of super-advanced pre-war artificial intelligence. Hell, I've seen weirder things in this wild wasteland. I mean, you haven't even asked about what went down at The Tops."

"I can assure you," House said, in the tone of voice an adult would adopt when speaking to an ignorant child. "I am not an artificial intelligence. I'm much smarter than a ZAX mainframe, for one thing. No, the reason I haven't asked about what became of Benny is that he ceased to be relevant when you recovered the Platinum Chip. Revenge doesn't interest me, progress does. Sorry to deny you a moment of primate triumph, but you'll have to go elsewhere to sound your barbaric yawp."

"No need to sling insults to prove you're not an AI, House," I said, narrowing my eyes at the monitor. "And that's not what I meant."

"Oh?" He sounded legitimately surprised.

"Yeah, I killed Benny – but I also shot up one of your casinos. Killed who knows how many of your employees as well. The fact that you don't seem at all concerned about that strikes me as a bit odd, that's all."

"I see. You're much more perceptive than you look. I'll grant you that much, Mr. Fisher. And while it's true The Tops was one of my biggest earners… the loss of income will be negligible - less than a 3% drop in overall revenue, if my calculations are correct. And my calculations are always correct. There are other casinos that will be more than capable of picking up the slack, while I keep The Tops closed to the general public. I've been meaning to renovate that old casino ever since the top three floors caved in, but I suppose it will have to wait until after the inevitable conflict between the NCR and Caesar's Legion. As for the Chairmen…" he paused, and when he spoke again, his words carried an ominous weight. "Everyone that you killed can be replaced."

I thought about what he said – the 'inevitable' conflict between the NCR and Caesar's Legion. And that was when I took a stab at what he was planning.

"Do you really think your Securitrons will be able to beat back the NCR, and Caesar's Legion, and whoever else wants Vegas?"

"Why would I go to war against the NCR?" he sounded almost insulted. "They're my best customers. If their leaders weren't scheming to steal Vegas out from under me, I would have no troubles with the so-called New California Republic at all. The salient issue is that _they_ would go to war with _me_. And in order to secure the future of New Vegas, I must have your assistance. The work ahead will be dangerous, but you've already proven quite handily that you weather danger well."

"I'm listening."

"I've resurrected Vegas, spirit intact, just as I saved it so many years ago. What I need now is the ability to enforce my rightful claim – to protect my city. To enforce, one must have force: a position of strength. Years ago, when I detected NCR scouts roaming the Mojave, I could tell from their uniforms that these were no mere tribesmen. I knew it was only a matter of time before an army appeared, to take control of Hoover Dam. And I knew my Securitrons wouldn't be enough to oppose them. That is why I recruited the Three Families. The city of New Vegas is mine, and all of it belongs to me because I mustered enough strength to bring the NCR to the bargaining table."

"But even with the Three Families, wasn't the NCR's army big enough to defeat you?"

"Indeed it was – and still is - but not without taking significant casualties. Would President Kimball and General Oliver have traded the lives of hundreds of soldiers for absolute control of Hoover Dam? Oh yes," he chuckled. "But then, they weren't afraid of me. They were afraid of Caesar. They were afraid that attacking me would leave them vulnerable to a Legion offensive. And so… they negotiated. Not out of the kindness of their hearts, as they try to make it seem, but because the calculus of power left them no other choice. Caesar's Legion is the only reason the NCR hasn't contrived some outrage to justify invading the Strip. The final battle between those two armies is fast approaching. Every calculation I've run confirms it, just as I predicted the Great War 200 years ago. And I can't afford to let either side win on their terms."

"Wait, back up – you predicted the war that blasted us back to the Stone Age?" For some reason, that news shocked me.

"Of course I did," he said with a level of smugness that was almost palpable. "By 2065, I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 12 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it. I knew I couldn't 'save the world,' nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas… my home… and in the process, perhaps I could save mankind. I set to work immediately. I thought I had plenty of time to prepare. But as it turned out, I was 20 hours short. On the day of the Great War, 77 atomic warheads targeted Las Vegas and its surrounding areas. Part of me wants to think they were targeting me specifically, but more likely the warheads were intended for the destruction of Nellis Air Force Base, even though it bruises my ego to admit it. The networked mainframes in the Lucky 38 were able to intercept and force-transmit disarm codes to 59 warheads, neutralizing them before impact. The laser cannons mounted on the roof of this very hotel destroyed another 9 warheads. The rest got through, though none hit the city itself." He sighed. "It was a sub-optimal performance, admittedly. If only the Platinum Chip had arrived a day sooner…" he said, his voice filled with self incrimination.

I was staring up at the monitor in awe. And for the first time, I knew exactly why House spoke as though he was smarter than everyone else. If it was true, then this story about how he saved Vegas from utter annihilation spoke volumes about his ability to prepare, predict, and manipulate the world around him – and he considered it a _failure_.

"Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse," he admitted eventually. "I nearly died as it was. Software glitches set off a cascade of system crashes. I had to take the Lucky 38's reactor offline, lest it melt down. For nearly five years, I battled power outages and more system crashes until I finally managed to reboot the data core with an older version of the operating system. I spent nearly four decades in a veritable coma. But I survived, obviously, and eventually thrived. But enough talk, reliving the past. It's time to talk about the mission." I cocked an eyebrow.

"It's a mission, now?"

"You can call it a 'job,' if it makes you feel more comfortable. Either way, the next step will require you to infiltrate Caesar's Camp at Fortification Hill." I was instantly reminded of something Yes Man had told me:

"_There are two locations with non-standard hardware on Mr. House's network – the Lucky 38 and an underground facility at Fortification Hill, on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam. I'd look there!"_

"You want me to infiltrate Caesar's Camp." I said, trying to parse his request in my head by repeating it to myself. "Ignoring, for the moment, the utter insanity of trying to sneak into what I can only assume is the heavily fortified base of the biggest slaver army anyone in the wasteland has ever seen, what do you want me to do when I get there?"

"There's a hatch in the basement of a derelict weather station atop Fortification Hill. I want you to go there, open it, and head inside. You'll recognize it immediately. The hatch bears the logo of the Lucky 38, same as the Platinum Chip."

"What's inside the hatch?"

"Something very important," he said, and I swear, I could almost hear him grinning again. "I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. You'll find out when you get there."

"So how do I open the hatch? I assume it's going to be more complicated than prying it open with a crowbar, or trying to blast it open with some explosives."

"You won't be able to open it," he said simply. "The hatch was designed using… appropriated Vault-Tec designs. Nothing short of a direct hit from a 30-megaton nuclear bomb would so much as chip the paint."

"But, you just -" House cut me off before I could finish.

"The Chip can open the doors, however. There is a slot designed for data chips next to the hatch. It will recognize the Platinum Chip and 'open sesame."

"One more question. Assuming I can even get to Fortification Hill, assuming I can get past Caesar and the rest of his army, and assuming the Chip will do what it's supposed to, and open the doors…" I paused. "What's my stake in all this?"

"I'm not offering you an incentive as crude as money, although there will be plenty of that, I can assure you. What I'm offering you is a ground-floor opportunity in the most important enterprise on Earth. What I'm offering… is a future. For you, and for what remains of the human race."

* * *

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open soundlessly as I returned to the casino floor of the Lucky 38. Immediately, I heard the sounds of laughing and shouting and a robot beeping.

"I don't get it!" I heard Boone raise his voice – the first time I'd ever heard him speak above a growl – when I approached the bar. "How can someone be THAT good at Caravan?" Veronica and Cass were laughing from behind the bar, and Boone was sitting across from them on a bar stool, his rifle leaned against the seat next to him. ED-E was floating around above them.

"What c'n I say, Imma caravan boss! Y'gotta be good at cards!" Cass thumped her chest with a fist proudly, her cheeks positively flush with red. Several empty bottles and overturned shot glasses were lined up on the bar next to her.

"Hey, there y'are!" Veronica said with a slight slur. "We were startin' to wonder where you'd gotten off to!"

"What are you guys doing?" I sat down on a seat next to Boone.

"Drunken Caravan!" Cass exclaimed proudly, pulling out a fresh bottle of vodka. "Winner takes a shot! An' I've been winnin' since y'left!" Boone shook his head and sighed, turning to me.

"So. What's the plan?" He asked, tossing his cards aside.

"That's right!" Veronica exclaimed, pouring a glass of bourbon. "How'd your talk with House go? Find out anything interesting?" She handed me the drink. I declined.

"You could say that…" I pulled out the stacks of caps, placing them on the bar. Everyone fell silent at the money in front of us all. "House has offered me a job. And if the rest of you want to keep traveling with me, that offer extends to all of you as well. He didn't give me too many specifics, but…" Before I could finish, Boone chimed up.

"I'm in," was all he said.

"Me too," Veronica said, raising the glass of bourbon in my general direction, taking a drink. "It's been fun so far! Whatever y'have in mind should be a blast!" When Veronica was finished, Cass looked at me with a smile, and a look of fierce determination that shone through her drunken haze.

"Y'know y'can count on me," she said, grasping my hand tightly. "This caravan ain't done travelin' yet…"


	13. Chapter 12: Circus

**Chapter 12: Circus**

* * *

_Daniel Wyand and I sat at the bar of the Rawhide Saloon, a pub in Shady Sands. We were sharing a drink and laughing about the events of the day. In all honesty, we probably shouldn't have been laughing - the two of us had both nearly died. But I guess laughing about it and drinking booze was helpful for taking the edge off._

_Here's the long and short of what happened: the two of us had been hired to pick up a package from one of the warehouses on the outskirts of Shady Sands. Of course, neither of us had been told about the other courier. That situation was bad enough, but once that was finally settled and the two of us got to the warehouse, we found the guy who hired us dead, and the warehouse swarming with thugs who worked for the Mordinos - one of the crime families that ran New Reno far to the north. The two of us hightailed it out of there, and finally lost them after they chased us across half the city - shooting at us the whole time._

_"Have you ever done anything so ridiculous?" Dan asked me, taking a drink from his beer. I let out a soft chuckle._

_"Once or twice. Just wait till I tell you about the one time three old ladies tried to mug me in Sac Town. I'm still trying to figure that one out," I took a drink, and continued. "I'm just amazed we got out of there alive. There must've been a million bullets flying through the air after us!"_

_"But I didn't get out alive," was all he said._

_That was unexpected._

_"What," was all I could manage to say, once I found my voice._

_"Oh, sure, I didn't die in the warehouse..." he turned to look at me, "... but death has already found me. It's just going to take him a few years to collect."_

_That was when I noticed the gaping hole in his head, where his left eye should've been. I could see right through his skull, straight through to the wall beyond. I jumped off my chair as fast as I could and bolted for the door. Corpses shouldn't talk or get up and move, and the fact that he was doing both scared the piss out of me. As I reached for the doorknob, I heard Wyand yell after me:_

_"Death is coming for us all. Even you, Courier Six."_

_I threw open the door and started running. For some reason, I was in a very, very long hallway. Didn't this door lead outside a minute ago? It didn't matter - all I cared about was running away from the talking corpse. The hallway stretched out in front of me so far that I couldn't see the end. I cast a glance behind me, to see if I was making any forward progress._

_Crash._

_Everything went dark and I saw stars. I must've crashed into a wall or something. Wasn't I running down a hallway? I blinked away the haze, and was confused by where I was. Looking around, I found myself in the main casino floor of The Tops, except there weren't any gaming tables anywhere. No slot machines, no roulette wheels, no blackjack tables... but there was one other person in the room. He had his back turned to me, but I recognized his black and white checked jacket instantly._

_"You don't kill a man when he's on his knees, begging for his life," Benny said, taking a draw from his cigarette. He didn't turn around. "That was one of your rules, right?"_

_Instinctively, I reached for Roscoe - and panicked, when I realized I didn't have any weapons on me at all. Even the Pip Boy Doc Mitchell had given me was gone. I looked around, trying to find something... but I paused when I took a look down at my hands. From my elbows down, both hands were covered and positively dripping red with blood. I looked up, trying to make sense of what was going on._

_Benny had turned around to face me... although 'face' was probably a poor choice of words. He didn't have a face. It was just a bloody, pulpy mass of meat and bone that was practically concave. I was overcome with an urge to run, and with a mounting sense of horror I became aware that I couldn't move my legs. But it wasn't just my legs that I couldn't move... in that instant, I realized my whole body felt paralyzed._

_"You beat me to death," the bloody mass of what used to be Benny's face moved around sickeningly as he talked, spraying blood everywhere. For a brief second, I wondered how he was able to talk without a mouth before the fear took root again. "You didn't even give me a chance to fight back, dig?"_

_"You shot me in the face," I said, latching onto the one fact I knew was true in a vain attempt to power through the mind-numbing terror of what was happening. "You shot me in the face, and dumped me in a shallow grave! What did you expect me to do?" Benny laughed - a sound which was deeply unpleasant and sent a shocking chill up my spine - and even more blood splattered out of his face and onto the floor as the meat shifted again._

_"Exactly. I shot you in the face, and you beat me to death. Perfectly justified vengeance... but you had to break one of your rules to do it," Somehow, impossibly, the meat and bone of Benny's face was sliding around and reforming into an actual face as he spoke. "What is it you always said? If you live without rules in the wasteland, then the horrors and the brutality will beat you down… until one day you find you're no better than a raider, raping and murdering just for the hell of it."_

_"I'm no raider!" I yelled at Benny._

_"Of course you're not. But you know what you are?" As he asked the question, his face finished reforming... but it wasn't Benny's face that looked at me._

_"You're no better than I am."_

_I was looking at myself._

_I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I tried to run, but I couldn't move. I tried to think, but I was too overcome with terror. I barely noticed as the Benny wearing my face pulled Maria out of his jacket. He fired, but not at me. He shot the ground near my feet, and the whole world around me shattered like glass, falling away into an inky black void. I fell with everything else as the ground dropped out from under me. I couldn't tell you how long I fell. Time was completely meaningless... a million years could have passed, for all I knew._

_Time reasserted itself and I landed on my back with a painful, loud thud. I shut my eyes, but it made no difference since the darkness of the world around me had been absolute. When I opened my eyes, I could see a blanket of stars... and looming above me, like a massive tombstone, was a familiar water tower. I reached out around me, clutching at low dirt walls._

_I'd fallen into my own grave._

_Before I realized what was happening, I heard a familiar squeaking sound, and Victor rolled into view. I tried to get up, but quicker than I could react, I felt a cold metal claw clamp down on my face and shove me back against the dirt. The expression on Victor's face screen was the same as it always was. I tried to yell at him to stop, but the sound was muffled by the claw clamped down firmly against my head._

_That was when I felt the dirt begin to pile up. A mountain of earth washed over me, burying me... smothering me... I tried to struggle, but there was too much dirt all around me. It was too heavy, and piled far too high. I tried to scream, but the dirt just flooded into my mouth, choking me. The last thing I saw before I was buried alive was the face of Victor, looking down at me... not saying a word._

* * *

I woke up with a start, completely drenched in sweat. It took a few minutes for my heart rate to slow to normal, and for my breathing to stop being so ragged. Of course it was a nightmare. Why could I never tell that I was dreaming while I was dreaming?

I rolled out of bed, trying to focus on where I was to wash away the nightmare. I was in the Lucky 38's "High-Roller" suite. I remembered that much. Victor had told me that House was going to let us use the suite: "You can bring your friends, too! Be like a little clubhouse for the gang you put together. Enjoy the digs, pardner. They're plenty fancy!"

"Plenty fancy" was certainly one way of describing it. The suite took up an entire floor in the Lucky 38. There was a large master bedroom, where I was, at least 6 smaller bedrooms, a bathroom with a shower and what looked like a large bathtub with jets in the side, a fully stocked kitchen and dining room, and another room with a pool table, 2 dart boards, and a jukebox. Everything was absolutely spotless, pristine, and immaculate. Every room had plate glass floor-to-ceiling windows, complete with sliding doors that led to balconies looking out over Vegas. It was a perfectly preserved slice of the old world, kept clean and fresh from the horrors of the real world for 200 years.

I looked around the floor, trying to find where I'd discarded my pants before collapsing into bed from exhaustion. In the darkness, I bumped into one of the desks, causing my Pip Boy to roll off and hit me in the foot. I let out a few curses and put the wrist computer on, checking the time. Then I cursed again when I realized it was three in the morning, and I'd barely gotten two hours of sleep. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get to sleep for a good long while after a nightmare like that. So I turned on the Pip Boy's light, found my pants, pulled open the blackout curtains, and exited my room out onto the balcony.

Even at three in the morning, the city of New Vegas was lit up like a sea of brightly colored neon lights below me. There were still people in the streets below, skittering around like tiny insects. Off in the distance, I could see The Tops; House's Securitron robots were standing guard at the entrance, dissuading anyone from entering. Looking out at the city below, I didn't understand how it could still be this lively this late at night.

"Trouble sleeping?" a voice to my left made me start. I looked around, and I saw that Boone was on the balcony with me, having presumably come from his room. Despite the darkness, he was still wearing his sunglasses. In fact, he still looked ready for combat, complete with his beret on his head and his rifle slung over his shoulder. He was leaning against the railing, looking down at the city with the same dour expression he always had.

"Yeah... Had a... nightmare. I think," I said, trying to stay away from any details. "What about you? What are you doing up?"

"I'm just awake, that's all." When he said it, an odd series of facts hit me like a cinderblock to the skull: when I first met Boone, he was the night watch sniper and I caught him near the beginning of his shift. Then, later on the next day, he showed up when someone who worked the night shift should have been sleeping, and stayed awake at least until after one in the morning. And here he was, up again.

"Do you ever sleep?"

"I sleep enough. I just don't..." Boone cleared his throat and continued. "I don't like sleep. Whenever I sleep, I see her."

"Carla?" I guessed. He nodded grimly.

"Yeah. Whenever I close my eyes I see..." he paused, like he was searching for the right words. "...the last time she was alive."

"Isn't that a good thing?" I asked. He clenched his jaw, and continued to look away from me, down at the city.

"I know what you're trying to do," he said, flatly. "And don't get me wrong - I appreciate the thought. I really do. But save your sympathy for someone who deserves it." I shot him a confused look, and was about to ask when he hiked his rifle up his shoulder and continued. "You're bound to find out for yourself soon enough. I'm not a good person. I've done some bad things… a lot of bad things. And I've got bad things coming to me, as payment for every one of my sins."

Boone started to walk away, towards another part of the balcony that ringed the Lucky 38, but before he disappeared around the corner, he turned back to say one last thing.

"This was only ever going to play out one way. And it won't end well."

* * *

There was no way I was getting back to sleep. Not for a while, at least. The nightmare had made me restless, and talking with Boone hadn't helped any. So I grabbed my shirt, a handful of caps, and decided to take a walk around the strip. I left Roscoe and That Gun on the desk in my room, since any of the casinos I entered would just make me hand them over anyway.

As soon as I stepped out of the elevator onto the casino floor of the Lucky 38, my knee flared up, sending a shock of pain up my leg that was really more of an annoyance than anything else. I leaned against the wall, and clutched my throbbing knee, since no one was around to poke fun at my injury.

"Oh for fuck sake…" I groaned out loud.

"I know you said you were fine earlier, pardner, but you look a right mess, let me tell you," I looked up, and saw that Victor had rolled into view from around the corner. I grunted a laugh, and shoved myself off the wall and back on my feet, trying to ignore my knee.

"I'm fine," I said, refusing to look at the robot as I limped on. The image from my nightmare of Victor burying me alive was still fresh in my mind, and even if I now knew he worked for House, it was still hard to bring myself to trust him. "I just have a bullet in my leg, is all." And a bullet below my collarbone as well, but that didn't hurt as much for some reason so I didn't mention it. Maybe it was because I wasn't walking on my shoulder...

"You should probably get that looked at, pardner. I know a few sawbones in town that'll get you fixed up right quick."

"I don't need a doctor, I just need better armor," I said with a cough. I hadn't really thought about it, but it was true enough. I'd been shot at more in the last few days than in the last few months, and a leather jacket and jeans didn't seem to do much to stop bullets.

"Besides," I continued, "what doctors are even open at 3:30 in the morning?" I asked sarcastically.

"Three... is that what time it is?" Victor asked. I ignored Victor's apparent inability to tell time, and continued walking to the front door. By the time I reached the entrance, the pain in my leg had faded away.

"I'll see you around, Vic," I said waving him off and opening the door without looking back at the robot. "I'm going for a walk."

I made it halfway down the front steps of the Lucky 38 before I realized everyone on the street ahead had stopped what they were doing and were staring at me. It took my sleep deprived brain a few seconds to realize what was up: I had just left the Lucky 38, a casino of legendary reputation that no living person had entered or exited in over 200 years.

I ignored them all and started walking down the strip. I caught bits and pieces of conversation as I passed; nothing important, just the gossip of townies and tourists wondering who I was. I thought I heard a few of them mention that they might want to try and get to know me - obviously, since I had been in the Lucky 38, I was someone very important that they should get to know.

It was at that point I felt an irrational craving for some smokes. Never mind that I didn't have any cigarettes on me, since Cass and I had sold all the packs we'd found at the Repconn test site for caps. Never mind that I didn't have a lighter on me or any matches or anything like that. And certainly never mind that I'd given up smoking almost two years ago, and had the willpower to not take up the habit again. Like I said, it was an irrational craving to breathe the fire out of my lungs.

Instead, I just started walking down the Strip. Walking has always calmed me down for some reason. I don't know why. I remember when I was younger, I always walked everywhere... well, to be honest, I walked _most_ places, and ran everywhere else. Specifically, when I was being chased by raiders. Or slavers. Or deathclaws. Of course, ever since I got the Corvega, it seemed like I walked around places less and less.

Walking around the Strip, surrounded by a cascade of neon lights assaulting my eyes, I was reminded of the last time I was in New Reno. I'd ended up having insomnia then, too. And then, I ended up walking down Virgin Street; best way I can describe it is Reno's version of Las Vegas Boulevard. Only smaller. And much less impressive.

There were dozens of casinos on the Strip, and for some reason I found myself staring up at what had to be the tackiest, most garishly decorated _thing_ I had ever seen, ever, in my entire life. The sign, brightly lit, spinning around, and flashing at me with so many different colors that it almost looked white, told me I was standing in front of "Bazooko's Circus." The sign was held up by yet another neon sign that was at least 20 feet tall... and shaped like a clown. The main part of the building was shaped like a massive red and white striped tent, and the tower behind it had "BAZOOKO" written in big flashing red and orange neon letters strapped to the side of the building.

Bazooko's Circus wasn't owned by one of the Three Families, but the presence of Securitron's so close by dispelled any belief that House was not in control here. As I stared up at the flashing multi-colored monstrosity, I felt myself chuckle softly. This was the kind of casino I expected Benny to run, considering how tacky his suit was. I thought this casino matched him perfectly. But, of course, that was before I realized the outside was understated compared to what it contained.

"What the hell." I shrugged and walked in the front doors. I've seen quite a few odd things during my travels in the wasteland. As I walked into Bazooko's Circus, it seemed like every single one of those strange, weird things were all gathered together and lumped into one place. Except it felt like I was looking at them through a wavy funhouse mirror, while completely drunk.

There were things you'd expect in a casino, sure - blackjack tables, craps tables, at least one giant roulette wheel, slot machines every five feet; but all the dealers and cocktail waitresses in short skirts and ample cleavage were dressed up in makeup, and colorful wigs and hats, and outfits with every single color. The multicolored patterns in the carpet appeared to move and swirl beneath my feet with a power all their own. It was quite disorienting.

Everywhere I went there were kiosks set into the wall, decorated with garish colors - radioactive greens, toxic oranges, bright vomit inducing pinks and purples... Somehow, the colors all seemed to glow, and anything white seemed to glow even brighter with a strange purple tint. Maybe I was just sleep deprived, and seeing things.

Most of the kiosks were closed up, but it looked like they would've housed games if they were open - target games mostly, where you'd have to hit plates with an air rifle, or knock down bottles with a baseball, or throw darts. But a few were different - the fortune teller, someone who swallowed swords, and one that boasted a "live" target you could throw knives at. I tried not to think about that last one too hard. Above everything was a net, and even though all the spotlights were turned off and it was empty, I could see a thin tightrope up near the ceiling, and several trapezes hung from the ceiling by ropes.

Frankly, I was amazed at how many people were still awake at this hour. The casino wasn't full - not by a longshot - but there was not an inconsiderable amount of people still in the casino, still throwing their money away, still playing cards, still trying to outwit the one-armed bandits that refused to give them a row of sevens.

Who were these people? These faces sticking out of the darkness? Most of them looked alive, but only just. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but they almost looked like walking cartoons, hideous and warped by the promise of riches only to have their hopes and dreams sucked out of them after being here for so long. They didn't look real.

And bloody hell, there certainly were a lot of them around at 4 o'clock on a Saturday morning.

After walking around the casino for a while, I ended up coming to a stop in front of a bar. The sign above it read "Carousel of Dreams"... except it didn't, because someone had spray painted over the sign so it actually read "CarousHELL of Dreams." I'd seen this kind of merry-go-round looking thing twice before: once, in a holotape movie from before the war, and another at the remains of a county fair somewhere in the ruins of Vacaville, a small town in California that hadn't been completely annihilated by the bombs. Unlike that carousel, this one didn't have any skeletons, but the paint was somehow faded and glowing at the same time.

The outer edges of the bar were rotating around the center, and the walls had statues of small multicolored technicolor horses held in place with rusty golden poles. Some of the horses had wings, and some had horns on their heads. I'd never seen a horse with wings or horns... but, to be honest, I'd never actually seen a horse either. I'd heard stories about horses surviving the war in remote places like Utah or Wyoming, but I'd never actually seen any - mutants or otherwise.

I stepped on the rotating portion of the bar, and was nearly knocked off my feet; it was moving a lot faster than I thought. I grabbed the pole of one of the horses to help keep my balance. Eventually, I got the hang of it, and was able to make my way past all the tables on the rotating portion, and onto the stationary center part of the bar. When I sat down at one of the stools, the bartender approached... and I did a double take, just to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. I was wrong - apparently this carousel did have a skeleton.

The bartender was a ghoul, the smell made that much obvious. He had painted his face like everyone else working in the casino, but he'd only used black and white makeup, and painted his face to resemble a stylized skull with black surrouding his eyes and black lines over his mouth. He wore a shabby black top hat, a tattered white shirt with a crooked black bow tie around his neck, and a pair of black gloves that had white bones painted on the tops. It was certainly more macabre and a lot less colorful than the other outfits I'd seen in this circus.

"What can I getcha?" the bartender asked in that gravelly, raspy voice all ghouls seemed to have. He was wiping down a glass in his gloved hands as he spoke.

"Got any good pick-me-ups?" I asked, but quickly added "Preferably, something with caffeine rather than alcohol."

"Heh," the ghoul let out a guttural laugh, putting the glass away on the counter behind him. "Let me guess - nightmares?" I nodded, and the ghoul continued. "Yeah, that's one of the benefits to being mostly-dead. I don't have to sleep if I don't want to."

"So, does that mean you have something?" I asked, hopefully.

"Yeah, I got something I think'll work," he reached beneath the counter, and continued to talk as he searched for whatever it was he was looking for. "It's called 'Wake-Up-Juice.' I learned the recipe from a friend of mine about a century ago."

He pulled out a number of bottles, and not all of them contained... liquid: I saw a half-full bottle of Nuka Cola Quantum with a rubber stopper in the top (I could tell what it was because it glowed blue), a drink mixer in the shape of a rocket that had the words "Atomic Cocktail" written on the side (it glowed a radioactive green in the light), a jar full of chili paste, a jar full of green olives suspended in their own juices, a bottle of hot sauce, a shaker with "cayenne" written on the side, a tin of Fixer pills, and an unmarked vial with a clear liquid that had an eyedropper for a lid.

I just sort of sat there - half in fear, half in curiosity - just watching in awe as he created this monstrosity. He put bits of everything into a tall shot glass, even crushing up the Fixer and mixing the powder into the drink with the sharp end of a knife. When he got to the unmarked vial, I finally spoke up.

"What in the hell is that, and why'd you only put three drops in? You put in more hot sauce than that!"

"This is the special ingredient," he said, carefully screwing the dropper-top back on the vial. "Epinephrine. It's artificial adrenaline." He slid the drink across the bar towards me, and smirked with a smile that showed way too many yellow teeth. "Here ya go, drink up. This'll keep you awake for as long as you want. That'll be 25 caps."

I eyed the drink with suspicion, but tossed my caps on the bar anyway. I lifted the tall shot glass up to my nose and immediately wished I hadn't; my eyes started to burn.

"Fuck it," I said, holding my nose. "Down the hatch," and swallowed it in one gulp.

That was all it took. I coughed furiously as it burned down my throat, but the world immediately shot into stark focus. In an instant I felt more awake and more alive than I'd ever felt before, but at the same time everything was spinning wildly out of control. I vaguely recall hearing my Pip Boy's Geiger counter clickety-click a few times.

"Good, isn't it?" I heard the ghoul say. The room stopped spinning, and the world righted itself just in time for me to see him pass a glass of water my way. I grabbed it, and downed the water greedily.

"It does the job," I managed to cough out with a smile after I finished the glass. "But I wouldn't call it good. Not by a longshot."

"Eh, Joey wouldn't know a good drink if it bit his rotten ass off," I heard a high pitched voice say from next to me. I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Down here, jackass," I heard the voice say at the same time I felt someone pull on my left pant leg. So I looked down and to my left, and there was a very tiny man, wearing a very unpleasant and dour expression on his face. He was all dressed up like a clown - complete with a red ball nose - and carrying a tray in one of his hands.

"Could you move? You're in my way," he said. So I got up, more in confusion than anything else. He reached onto a handle on the bar next to where my leg had been, pulling out a set of steps that let him climb to the top.

"How're you doin', Seamus?" Joey the ghoul bartender asked the tiny clown with the drinks tray. "Still angry at the world, I take it?"

"Piss off," he said to the ghoul.

"Aw," Joey said with a laugh. "You do care!"

"Table three needs a bottle of wine, and table six needs a trio of wasteland tequila shots."

"Got it. Half a sec," and Joey disappeared around the other side of the bar. Seamus sighed, removing the red ball from his nose and stretching his jaw.

"I hate this place," he said with so much bile, it was almost palpable.

"It's not that bad," I heard another voice from my right speak up. I looked around, and saw a rather hefty looking bald man sitting two stools away from me. "Hey Joey, when you're finished with those drinks, can I get a glass of Absinthe?"

Joey came back around with the drinks for the tiny clown, and all Seamus could do was laugh bitterly. "You know, it's a hell of a thing," Seamus said to me as he put his nose back on. "When he was a kid and living in Vault 21, the owner of this shithole always wanted to leave the vault and join the circus. Now the son of a bitch owns the circus."

"Don't mind Seamus," the rotund man nearby said to me as I watched the tiny unpleasant man climb down the steps and walk off. "He's always like that."

"So... you've seen him before then, I take it?" I asked.

"I ought to, I work here," he said just as Joey set down a glass full of green colored liquid in front of him. He thanked the ghoul, and then reached for the glass - but not with either of his hands at his sides. A third hand, with only three fingers, emerged from the folds in his coat and clutched the glass, sipping gingerly at the green liquid.

Apparently, I had failed to contain my shock, because he looked at me with a face approaching amusement and set his glass down.

"Before you ask, yes, it's real," As if to emphasize the point, he waved at me with his three fingered hand and said "Hello. My name's Eddie."

"Uh... hi. I'm Sheason. You said you work here?"

"Yeah, I'm part of the Freak Show. Every circus has gotta have a freak show, right? Honestly, I think I'm kinda lucky."

"Lucky?" I asked. "How do ya figure?"

"Well, y'see, I look at it like this. Most people, when they're exposed to massive amounts of radiation, they just get sick and die in a pool of their own vomit. Then, some people, like this handsome chap here," he motioned to the ghoul, who just laughed, "they turn into ghouls. And then there's the one's like me - the mutants. It's not all bad. The third arm helped me land a job here on the Strip. It's steady work with a steady paycheck. Besides, with the exception of Seamus, all the people here are really nice, so I can't complain."

"Freak show..." I repeated, trying to wrap my head around the concept.

"Yeah. What, you've never been to a freak show?" I shook my head. "It's an experience, let me tell you right now."

"So... forgive me for asking, but are they all... er, mutants like you?" Eddie shook his head, and took another sip.

"Not all of them. I mean, yeah, Mean Sonofabitch was technically a Super Mutant. He was a freak because he was 'tame' and he'd had his tongue cut out, but he doesn't work here anymore. He left about a year ago. Last I heard he found work as a bodyguard somewhere out in Westside. But there are some normals in the freak show as well - like the guys who 'eat' swords and fire and stuff. And then there's the people who are just born freaks, rather than the radiation mutants. Like Denise, the Yak Woman."

"Yak Woman." I deadpanned.

"Yeah. She's a sweet gal. Ugly as sin, I admit - got a pair of horns growing out of her head - but she's a hell of a good cook. And then there's the Red Menace. They're a pair of Chinese conjoined twins who came down from Chinatown a few years ago, so they got that going for them. But they pull double duty because they're both bodybuilders too, so they take on the strongman act as well."

"And that's a freak show? What, do people just come to stare at you then? I mean, no offense, but that's kind of what it sounds like." Eddie shrugged.

"I'll be honest, most people come just to look at crazy sights and not have to worry about getting shot at. But really... a freak show is beautiful. It's a showcase of man's heroic triumph over medical adversity and extreme pessimism." He laughed, and took another sip of his drink.

"I think you're talkin' out of your ass Eddie," The ghoul said with a smile. Eddie shook his head and waved his third hand.

"Nah, that's not me. Vince is the guy who talks out of his ass." He turned to me with a smile and said "Now that's something to see, let me tell you."

* * *

It was about an hour later when I stepped out of Bazooko's Circus. The inky blackness of night was starting to turn just a hint of royal blue. The air on the strip smelled of smoke, and... grilled meat, for some reason. I took one last look up at what was possibly the strangest casino in the entire world, and just felt myself start to laugh. Just a chuckle at first, but then I couldn't restrain myself and I busted out laughing raucously. I walked away from the circus, and said out loud, to no one but myself:

"When the fuck did my life become so weird?"


	14. Chapter 13: Smiling Sad

Chapter 13: Smiling Sad

* * *

_Good morning, to everyone out there in the Mojave Wasteland! You're listening to Radio New Vegas, and I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas. I've just received a news story, and I'll be honest listeners... this one is a bit strange. Apparently, several unidentified aircraft were spotted flying over the REPCONN Test Site yesterday by a local crackpot living in Novac. He spoke to a toy bear near one of our microphones: "It's ghouls, I tell you! Religious ghouls in space rockets, looking for a land to call their own! Don't you laugh at me! I know a spell that'll make you show your true form - a cave rat taught it to me!" This part of the program has been brought to you by the Triple Seven Hotel and Casino: Your lucky number is always Triple Seven. Coming to you next on the airwaves is a personal favorite song of mine. It's Peggy Lee singing that classic song, Why Don't You Do Right?_

* * *

When I got back to the suite at the Lucky 38, I was still completely wired from the "Wake-Up-Juice." It had been several hours, and I was amazed at how alert I still felt. I checked the time on my Pip Boy - it was just after nine thirty in the morning. So, to help pass the time until my companions were up, I decided to do something that I hadn't done in a very long time.

Take a shower.

Making a big deal out of taking a shower may seem like a very odd thing to do, but keep in mind: even though it's been over 200 years since the apocalypse, most water sources you'll find are filthy, poisonous, irradiated pools of muddy sludge. Out in the wasteland, any water clean and pure enough to drink is too precious to waste on hygiene. Even in the cities of the New California Republic, fresh water is just as scarce. Most of the clean water owned by the NCR is used to grow crops, and everything else is rationed as drinking water. As far as I know, the only place in the NCR with enough clean water to go around so people can bathe on a regular basis is the capital city of Shady Sands.

That's why the NCR is so dead set on controlling Hoover Dam: whoever controls the dam has access to Lake Mead, the greatest source of non-irradiated fresh water still in the wasteland. But the Lucky 38 - at least, according to Victor - has its own water purification facilities and reservoir beneath the casino. It was just one of many... things House had installed under his hotel-casino-fortress to make it almost self-sufficient before the bombs fell. Part of me was curious as to what else House had hidden away in the Lucky 38, but another part insisted that I didn't want to know.

The shower was more refreshing and more relaxing than anything I'd experienced in recent memory. I felt muscles that I had forgotten I had loosen up and relax for the first time in years. As the water ran through my hair and over me, it felt like years of dirt and grime and filth and blood were literally washing away. I stayed in the shower for a good long while after I felt cleaner than I had in years, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I gulped down several mouthfuls of water before I turned the faucet off. I didn't want to waste any more water than I had to... old habits, I guess.

After drying off, I picked up my shirt off the floor, and laughed grimly when I finally got a good look at it. Apparently, I had been walking around Vegas all night in a shirt stained with my own dried blood. I stuck a finger through the hole in the right shoulder, wondering how I'd missed something so obvious for so long. So I took it over to the sink, and tried to wash away at least a little of the blood, but no dice. The blood and dirt had been caked on my shirt all night, so that all it did was turn the water a reddish-brown and make my shirt soggy.

I hung my wet shirt on the towel rack behind me to give it some time to dry out, and turned to look at myself in the mirror above the sink. The wounds on my right shoulder and upper left arm were mended, but still visible. They weren't the only scars on my body, but they did stand out the most, since the skin was still pink where the muscle and tissues had been regrown. My hair was mostly dry, but still damp enough that it was matted and most of it clung to me. I ran my fingers through my hair to get it out of my face, and took a good, long look at my beard.

"I need a shave," I said aloud. I looked around the sink, and my eyes fell on a jar of shaving cream and a straight razor. Five minutes of very careful shaving later, my face was completely beard free... and immediately, I wished I hadn't bothered. The bullet scar that slashed across my right cheek was healed, but it was still deep, and still very visible. It wasn't quite the Glasgow Smile I thought it was when I first got a look at it a few days ago, but it was still pretty gruesome.

* * *

When I finally got dressed and stepped out of the bathroom, I was greeted by the sight of a floating eyebot hovering right in front of me, directly at eye level.

"Hey there, ED-E," I said to the floating robot. "So, where have you been all night?" The floating robot bobbed to the left, let out two beeps, then bobbed to the right, and let out two more beeps.

"Just here and there?" I must've been right with what was (honestly) just a guess, because ED-E bobbed up and down in the air like someone nodding their head, and beeped happily.

"Yeah, me too. Spent the last few hours just wandering around the Strip. Maybe you can come with me next time," Somehow, I just knew that my problems with insomnia weren't finished. ED-E beeped happily at the offer. At that moment, I heard Veronica's voice and several odd noises coming from the kitchen that caught my attention.

"Don't you worry about a thing, Cass! One sip of this, and you'll be as sober as a Brotherhood Paladin on Sunday," Veronica said. I heard Cass grumble and mutter something incoherent back at her. I walked in, ED-E floating behind me, and saw Cass sitting at the kitchen table with an ice pack pressed against her head. Her jacket, hat, and shotgun were nowhere to be found and her red hair was loose and untied. Veronica on the other hand was standing at the counter and stirring a bubbling and boiling mixture in a pot on the cook top. She turned to me with a smile.

"Morning! No longer Grizzly Adams, huh? You look good." She said, beaming. I didn't believe a word of it. "Did you sleep well?"

"Not really," I deadpanned. "What about you? You seem awfully chipper."

"Bothaya, shuddup," Cass grumbled, lowering her head to the table with a clunk. "Ow..."

"I had a great night sleep!" She said, ignoring Cass and continuing to stir the mixture in the pot. "The beds here are a lot softer than the cots in the Brotherhood Citadels I've lived in, and they're a hell of a lot better than anything I've found in the wastes."

"So, what are you up to?" I asked, honestly curious. "Making breakfast?" I was hoping against that - what she was stirring both looked and smelled vile.

"Sort of. Cass had a tiny bit too much to drink last night, so I'm making a batch of the patented Brotherhood Scribe Hangover Cure© to clear her head." I took a look over her shoulder to get a better look at what she was stirring. It was green, it smelled positively rank, and judging by the egg shells discarded nearby, there were Gecko eggs in the mixture.

"Fuggov," Cass' words were somewhat muffled by her mouth pressed against the table. "Ahm f'ne, jus shuddup, n'leave m'alone..."

"So, the Brotherhood has a hangover cure?" I asked. That was a bit surprising, to be honest - I'd always thought of the Brotherhood of Steel as pious religious monks, and the kind of excessive drinking that required a hangover cure didn't seem to mesh with that image.

"Of course we do," Veronica said as she turned off the stove and started pouring the foul smelling mixture into a glass. "Just because the Elders and Paladins have to keep up appearances doesn't mean the rest of us don't know how to party." I chuckled, and took a look at Cass, who was clutching the ice pack to her head tightly, and trying to cover her ears.

"Frankly, I'm amazed she got drunk at all. She knocks back whiskey like it's water."

"Maybe, but I think drinking three bottles of 200 year old scotch in under an hour and a half will knock anybody on their ass, no matter how much they're used to drinking," Veronica did her best to coax some semblance of life back into Cass.

"I take it back," I said, watching the two of them. "I'm amazed she's not **dead**."

"M'livers ind'structble," Cass boasted, patting her gut with a fist for emphasis. When Veronica offered the hangover cure, Cass screwed her face up and shoved it away. "Dunwanna."

"I know it looks disgusting, but drinking this will help your head. Trust me," Cass just growled, and continued to refuse, but Veronica wasn't going to let her go that easily. "Ok, that's how you want to do this? Fine... either you drink it, or I make you. And I can think of a few very... _creative_ ways to distract you."

Veronica smiled wider than a cat, and fluttered her eyelashes. Cass' eyes shot wide open and her cheeks flushed brightly red. She looked at Veronica, back at the hangover cure, and then back to Veronica. Gingerly, she grabbed the glass and started to sip... and then Veronica put two fingers on the bottom of the glass and tipped it up, forcing her to keep drinking. Cass nearly gagged, but she eventually drank it all, and Veronica slid her a glass of water across the table as a reward. She drank the water with considerably more enthusiasm.

"Atta girl, you'll be right as rain in no time," Veronica said, patting Cass on the shoulder.

"Augh!" Cass stuck her tongue out and gagged after she finished her water. "That was disgusting! I can't get the taste off my tongue!"

"Well, that's how you know it's a good hangover cure. The best hangover cures, like the hangovers themselves, are so disgusting that they make you never want to drink that much ever again." Veronica leaned against a nearby chair, turned to look at me, and said "So, last night we shot up a casino, took out one of the heads of the Three Families, and then got hired by the most powerful man in Vegas. What's the plan for today? Get in a fist-fight with a deathclaw? Find a vertibird and skydive out of it? Give a Super Mutant a wedgie?" I couldn't help but chuckle.

"You know, I'm not really sure," I said, shrugging. "That... job he's hired me, er, us for, it's going to take a serious load of planning to pull off. It's not something we'll be able to do today. One the plus side, I don't think it's too time sensitive, so we'll have plenty of time to prepare."

"You still haven't told us what it is yet, you know?" Veronica said, pulling up a chair.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "It's gonna be tricky, that's the important thing. And like I said, I don't think we're on the clock. Not yet, anyway. As for what to do today, I was thinking that I might make good on that promise to check out the other sacked caravan. What do you say, Cass? Feeling up for it?" I figured I already knew the answer, but no harm in asking, right?

"Fuck that," Cass said, slightly more coherent, but no less hoarse than before. "It can wait a day'r two. I just wanna go back to bed."

"Well, that answers that."

"What about your leg?" Veronica said, pointing to my knee.

"What about it?"

"Oh, c'mon. I saw the blood, I saw the bullet hole in your jeans, and you were limping everywhere last night. Doesn't take a brainbox to figure out you're suffering from lead poisoning. Aren't you going to do something about it? Maybe see to getting that metal slug removed?"

"Yeah... I suppose that's a good idea," I said, biting back a cough. "But I don't exactly know where I can go to get medical treatment around here."

"You're in luck," Veronica said, rocking in her chair with a smug smile on her face. "I know of a place where you can get some medical treatment: the Old Mormon Fort, where the Followers of the Apocalypse have set up shop. It's in Freeside, and I can show you the way, if you want."

I considered that for a moment. There was something scratching in the back of my mind that told me Veronica had an ulterior motive for wanting to go there, and wasn't just offering to show me the way out of the kindness of her heart. But on the other hand, even I had to admit that the sooner I got the bullet out from behind my knee, the better. Not to mention the bullet in my shoulder.

"Works for me," I said.

* * *

Roughly 15 minutes later, Veronica and I were walking past the Strip's front gate and back into Freeside, ED-E floating close behind. Las Vegas Boulevard was full of people walking or standing around, and everyone somehow managed to simultaneously cluster together in groups and keep their distance from one another. Frankly, I was surprised at the sheer number of people around - had there been this many last night? I honestly couldn't remember. I must have been too blinded by vengeance to notice.

I sighed inwardly at the thought. I wondered how much else I'd missed on my self righteous quest for revenge. Yeah, I'd been successful. I'd killed the man who put me in the ground. I'd retrieved the Platinum Chip. And now, I was, technically, in the employ of House, with promises of riches and power beyond the dreams of avarice. But despite that, killing Benny hadn't left me feeling fulfilled in any way... hell, it didn't even make me happy. All it had done was make me feel hollow and empty inside - my nightmare had been proof enough of that.

I needed a distraction. That much was certain. And lucky for me, I had a mobile distraction walking right next to me.

"So," I said to Veronica, "what's going between you and Cass?" Veronica tried to hide a blush, and let out a small chuckle.

"Whatever do you mean?" She said, in a faux-innocent voice. ED-E let out a series of beeps that I could swear sounded like a laugh.

"I'm just wondering if anything came out of all your shameless flirting last night, is all."

"I was that obvious, huh?" I nodded, and Veronica snapped her fingers. "Damn, and here I thought I was being subtle... no, nothing happened. I doubt anything will, to be honest. She's a nice girl, but I don't think I'm her type. So why are you being so nosy?"

"Call me curious," I said with a shrug.

"Sure thing, curious." She smirked from beneath her robe's hood. "But seriously, though. Why are you interested?"

"Because, as far as I can tell, the four of us are going to be working and travelling together for the foreseeable future. And I'd rather things not get awkward between anyone. That make sense?"

"Yeah, that makes sense," she said with a nod. "Like I said before, I don't think I'm her type. Course, that still won't keep me from flirting with her. You have no idea how amazingly fun she is to tease!"

I just sighed and shook my head as the two of us continued down the road, ED-E floating in the air beside us.

"Ok, so you're not her type. What about you? Do you have a type?" I asked, and then added quickly "I figure, the least I can do is keep an eye out for you."

"My type is a leggy brunette who enjoys long walks in the desert, candlelit metal workshops, and midnight sparring sessions," she said almost immediately. My head perked up as I tried to conjure up a metal image of the kind of girl she described.

"That's... oddly specific," I said.

"What can I say, I know what I like," she replied with a shrug. I didn't buy it. Unsurprising, really: I hadn't known her all that long, but she was becoming incredibly easy to read. From the tone of her voice and her body language, she was hiding something, and the last time she deflected like this was when she was trying to hide her association with the Brotherhood of Steel.

"No, it's not just that... there's a story here, isn't there?" I asked, regarding her much more carefully now. She looked away, and her ever present smile, while still there, seemed to fade just slightly as she spoke.

"It... it was a long time ago. I was pretty young."

"You're still pretty young," I countered with a smirk.

"Shut up! I'm trying to be serious here," She stayed silent for a minute or two, as if she was trying to pluck the right words from the air. Finally, she asked me "Have you ever been in love?"

Oh wow. Was THAT a loaded question. How the hell should I answer that? Should I be honest, and tell her the truth? Hell, that was a long story in and of itself, and for all I knew, the story she wanted to tell me was just as long, if not longer. Should I deflect, like she seemed to like to do? Would she be able to tell that I was deflecting, since I really didn't want to talk about it? Should I just flat out deny it? Would she be able to tell I was lying through my teeth if I denied it?

Then I realized, I was thinking about this way too much. I'm not the type to spill an encyclopedia's content of my personal history at the slightest provocation anyway.

"Yeah," I finally admitted, trying to sound as noncommittal as possible, and then very quickly added "Why?"

"Well, because... I was in love, once. She and I were both young, but... I mean, I'd like to think it was love." She sounded nostalgic as she spoke, but my mind caught hold of the 'was' and wouldn't let go.

"Was, huh?" I asked. "So what happened?"

"Her parents happened," I cocked an eyebrow. I didn't quite understand, so I motioned for her to continue.

"The Brotherhood of Steel doesn't take on new members... not really," Veronica said, sounding almost like she was quoting directly from a Brotherhood book of bylaws and regulations. "For the most part, nearly everyone can trace their lineage back to the original soldiers and civilians who left the US Army in The Exodus after the bombs fell."

"The US Army?" I asked. I'd never heard that before. She nodded in response.

"Yeah. It's a bit complicated, I know, since the Brotherhood has styled itself on the armored knights of ancient times, but the discipline and structure is all very old world military. And like I said, most of us can trace our roots because we don't take on new members. And that means a lot of members think that obligates all of us to procreate."

I could see exactly where this story was going.

"And her parents couldn't accept that their daughter was gay."

"It wasn't just them," Veronica said. "Our Chapter Elder, Father Elijah... he wasn't exactly supportive on my end, either. I admit, having your mentor tell you your interest in women is 'just a disgusting, unnatural, childish phase that you'll grow out of' stings for quite a while, to say the least. So, she left the Brotherhood the first chance she got."

"What about your parents?" I asked.

"They..." she paused, and rubbed the back of her neck (or, she rubbed the back of her hood where her neck was underneath). "My parents never found out, actually. They died a long time ago, in the same battle trying to hold off the NCR from... something." She let out a short, sad sigh. "I don't remember what it was. Guess it seemed important at the time."

"Didn't you want to go with her when she left?" I asked. I couldn't imagine why she'd want to stay if her parents were dead - she wouldn't have anything left keeping her there. She was quiet for a few minutes, not answering right away. Finally, she spoke up.

"No. I couldn't bring myself to leave everyone behind. I know it sounds stupid, and like I was trading happiness for living in a bad place with bad people, but despite it all the Brotherhood is my family. Even if most of them don't... can't accept who I am. You see, after my parents passed, Father Elijah looked after me. The whole Brotherhood brought me up, really, but he made sure of it. Still... I couldn't convince her to stay. I had hoped that love would influence her decision, but... we were both too stubborn. And she was always just so driven. In hindsight, it's... actually kind of funny. One of the best things about her, and one of the things that attracted me to her, making me fall in love with her in the first place... it's the very thing that kept us apart."

She hid her face from me, but I didn't need to see. I could tell from her words, from her voice, and from her body language that she was holding back tears. Suddenly, and without warning, words flashed across my mind: the words of the boy at the 188.

_"With regret comes a girl… smiling sad..._ _wraps her and her heart up like a pack..."_

She composed herself quickly, and turned back to me. Her ever present smile was spread wide across her face... but now I wasn't sure I'd ever seen a real smile. I'm amazed I hadn't picked up on it before, but now I finally saw her smile for what it really was: a mask. It was a way for her to hide what she was really feeling. A way for her to deal, day to day, with the harsh realities of the world and all of the pain in her heart that she would never be rid of.

"I don't know where she is now," she said, looking away and up towards the sky. "... but I'm sure she's moved on. I still think about her, though... once in a while..."

"What was her name?" I asked, genuinely curious. I knew it didn't really matter, but it felt like asking was the right thing to do.

"Christine."


	15. Chapter 14: Nothing New Under The Sun

**Chapter 14: Nothing New Under The Sun**

* * *

_Welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas show. Breaking news: The Tops Hotel and Casino is currently and unexpectedly closed to the public. Mr. House's Securitrons have been seen stationed at the front of the casino, denying entrance to everyone attempting to enter the casino. Neither the owner of The Tops, Benny, or his right hand man, Swank, could be reached for comment. A Securitron speaking on behalf of Mr. House indicated that this is part of an ongoing attempt to remodel and revitalize aging areas of The Strip, and this is nothing to worry about. The news this hour has been brought to you by the Atomic Wrangler: Wrangle yourself some cold drinks and steamy fun tonight. Coming up next is Vera Keys, singing that classic pre-war song Begin Again._

* * *

The Old Mormon Fort wasn't like anything else in Freeside. Most of the buildings in Freeside were old, but they looked like they could've been new when the bombs fell. The fort, on the other hand, was old in a sense that I can't even truly fathom. Despite the name, the fort didn't really have any serious fortifications. The only defense I could see was a decently high wall - maybe 14, 15 feet high? - that looked like they were made from the same sand-clay-sticks-mud material as the adobe buildings I'd seen in Arroyo years ago. Which made sense, when I saw the sign out front: apparently the "Old Las Vegas Mormon Historical Park" had been built in 1855. 426 years ago... I couldn't even imagine that far back.

Inside the wooden gates was a large courtyard, ringed by row after row of tents. Most of the tents were open, and I could see dozens of people either lying on cots, milling about talking to one another, or sitting at tables, talking to one another, eating, drinking, and who knows what else. A fourth of the people I could see walking around were wearing white coats, and looked like doctors. There were half a dozen other people around carrying guns - guards, most likely. All around the tents were crates, piled on top of one another, and barrels with "H2O" spray painted on the side. Most of the barrels looked empty.

In the center of the courtyard was a ring of sandbags, surrounding a metal flagpole. At the top of the flagpole the flag of the Followers of the Apocalypse was flying. The flag was very simple: it was a white flag, and in the center was a pronged, black cross, with a black disk sitting off center connecting the prongs. The whole image was surrounded by a black ring. All the doctors I saw wearing the labcoats had a patch with the symbol sewn onto the shoulders of their coats.

"So, this is the Old Mormon Fort?" I asked, turning to Veronica. She was still looking up at the flag.

"I guess so," she replied, nodding.

"It's kind of ironic, if you think about it."

"Huh?" She turned to look at me with a quizzical look. Even ED-E seemed to turn and look at me.

"Well, the first time I met members of the Followers was at their headquarters in the Boneyard. When I asked what they were all about, they told me that they reject things like gods and religion and supernatural mystical hocus-pocus nonsense like that, focusing on things like science and medicine, knowledge, reason, morals, ethics, etc. But where do they set up shop here in the Mojave? A place with an old world religion right in the name." I heard Veronica try to stifle a chuckle under her breath; ED-E, on the other hand, let loose a series of harsh beeps that definitely sounded like laughter.

"Yeah," Veronica said, finally letting a few laughs escape, "I guess that is kinda funny."

As the three of us laughed, one of the doctors approached us. I couldn't immediately tell how old she was, but that was because my attention was drawn away from her face. The sides of her head were shaved almost completely bald, and the only real hair to speak of - and you could, trust me - was a bright, almost unnatural orange, that stood straight up in a very, very pointy Mohawk.

"Hello there," she spoke in a kind, gentle voice that made me realize I was staring, and shook me out of it. "My name is Julie Farkas. Are you here to drop off medical supplies?"

A twinge started to form in the pit of my stomach... a sensation that had become all too familiar the last few days.

"No... I'm actually here because I have a bullet lodged in my leg and I'd like to get rid of it," I said, patting my left knee with a grimace. "So, does that mean you don't have any medical supplies? Or do you just need more?"

"We always need more," she said with a sigh. "Things are awful in Freeside, and we need all the help we can get to give aid and shelter to those who need it. And I'm sorry... but I have good news and bad news."

"Give me the bad news first," I sighed, trying to ignore the throbbing in my temple where Benny shot me. "Might as well get it over with."

"We can't really help with your injury here. The fort acts as the administrative headquarters for the Mojave detachment of the Followers, a free clinic offering basic medical treatment, and a halfway house for the destitute and those in the most dire need, but we're not really equipped for any kind of surgery, invasive or otherwise."

I frowned, and resisted the urge to let out a string of incredibly vulgar profanity. I thought Veronica said I could get medical treatment here? This was starting to look like a long walk for nothing.

"But the good news," Julie continued, "is that I know where you can get patched up. A close friend of mine and another member of the Followers, Dr. Usanagi, has set up a medical clinic outside of Freeside, about a mile and a half east of the Crimson Caravan's headquarters. She'll be able to help you with anything you need, from surgery to remove a bullet to cybernetic implants."

"If she's so good," I asked, scratching the back of my head "why isn't she set up here? I mean, you look like you have enough space."

"Because she's forced to charge for her services. The Auto-Docs that assist her in medical operations are incredibly difficult to maintain and run, not to mention expensive. This is a free clinic - having a doctor who charges for medical treatment here... it wouldn't be smart." I had to admit, in a way that made sense, and the fact that Usanagi had Auto-Docs was definitely promising. By the time those old world machines were done with me, my knee would probably feel better than new.

I was about to ask her for more specific directions, when Veronica spoke up. She had been listening in and looking around the fort while Julie and I had been talking.

"Are things really that rough here in Freeside?" she asked.

"More than rough," Julie said, shaking her head with a sigh. "It's a damn mess." There was something in the tone of her voice... she sounded desperate. And tired. And then I got that feeling in the back of my skull - the one that made the logical, pragmatic part of my brain start yelling at me.

Don't do it. Don't you dare do it.

"Freeside townies are constantly picking fights with NCR civilians," she continued. "Thugs and thieves are always looking for a fresh victim, and the local families are just sitting back making caps on the mess."

Don't do it, I just kept thinking. This isn't your fight.

"The Followers can only do so much to stem the tide. Freeside is in dire need, but no one has been man enough to step up."

Damnit all!

"Is... is there anything I can do to help?" I eventually heard myself say. Her expression brightened, and she smiled at me.

"There's always something that needs to be done. The most important thing would be organizing a regular supply of medicine to the fort. Unfortunately, the Crimson Caravan wants too many caps for what we need. There's also been a lot of tensions brewing between the townies and NCR squatters, like I said before. I've tried talking to The King, but if someone doesn't do something to calm tensions soon, I'm afraid a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt. Of course, I also know a few people who could be great assets to the community, if only they'd kick their addictions."

As soon as she mentioned the addicts, both sides of my brain shut up.

"Wait," I said. "What was that about addicts?"

"Freeside is full of addicts, but there are two in particular who I think we can help, and who could definitely help the community in turn once they get clean: Old Bill Ronte and Jacob Hoff. Unfortunately, they're not going to kick their addictions on their own. Bill Ronte is an exceptionally skilled machinist, who could fix the problems we've been having with Freeside's water pump... but only once he sobers up. Then there's Jacob, who got hooked on chems by the Garrets when he was working for them. Honestly, it's a bit ironic, since he used to homebrew detox chems for the Followers a few years ago. If he gets clean, he might be able to help us again."

"Do you know where I can find them?" I asked, with a conviction I didn't realize I had until I'd heard the words escape my mouth.

"In Freeside, the drunks and the drug addicts flock in and around the Atomic Wrangler. I'd start there. You can find it at the west end of Fremont Street. There's a big neon sign above the door of a cowboy riding an atom, you can't miss it." She paused, then added "Do you really think you might be able to help with some of our problems?" She sounded incredibly hopeful, and looked up at me with a pleading expression.

"I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Julie punched the coordinates for Dr. Usanagi's clinic into my Pip Boy, and then politely excused herself, saying that she needed to tend to other business around the fort. After she left, Veronica slowly inched her way towards me.

"That's awful nice of you, offering to help them out like this," she said. I shrugged.

"I said I'd see what I can do. It's not like I promised to fix all of Freeside's problems overnight or anything."

"Still, it's more than most people nowadays would do." She looked around the fort and added, seemingly to herself "Can't help but be impressed by what they're doing here..." Veronica shook it off, and looked back at me. "It begs the question though - why?"

"Why?" I repeated, a bit taken aback by the question. She nodded.

"I admit, I haven't known you for very long. Probably less than a day. But I've seen enough of how you operate so far to take an educated guess: you don't do anything without a reason. So what's your reason for helping the Followers?"

I paused for a minute, trying to consider her question. My knee started to flare up slightly for no obvious reason, so I used that as an excuse to delay while I found a place to sit down. After we found a pair of chairs outside a tent on the north end of the fort, I decided to be straight and honest with her.

"Because of the addicts," I said, sitting down. "When she talked about helping the addicts get clean, I felt... compelled."

"There's a story here, isn't there?" She looked at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Using my own words against me, huh?" She nodded smugly. "Alright, alright. I'll tell you the story. I decided to help out when she mentioned the addicts, because I used to be an addict myself. It was a long time ago, back when I was still living in Shady Sands."

"How long ago was that?"

"Hell," I said, the details returning to the forefront of my mind, "It was about 13 years ago, maybe a bit more. I was in my mid twenties, but it felt like I was still barely out of my teens. I was just a dumb kid... made a lot of dumb decisions..." I trailed off a bit, a number of painful memories that I'd much rather stay buried started to surface. I shook it off, realizing I'd been staring off in space, and continued. Unfortunately, the memories were forced to continue with me.

"There was a girl. You asked earlier if I'd ever been in love, and all I said was yes. Doesn't really do the story justice. I don't want to bore you with all the pointless, trivial details, but... see, what happened was, she and I were together for a while, and then one day, she leaves me. Never gave me a real reason, so me being the immature, idiot-child I was back then, I blamed it all on myself. It was a real hit to my own self-worth, you know? And then I thought, maybe if I was better somehow, she might take me back."

"Better?" Veronica asked dubiously. "What do you mean, better?"

"I mean the kind of better you get with Mentats. At least, at the time, I thought it was better. I know different now, but... basically, I started taking Party-Time Mentats to try and give my mind a boost, and make myself... 'better' so she'd come back to me. Eventually though..." I sighed. "Eventually I forgot all about why I was taking them. It got to the point where I was popping the damn things like candy... where the world just didn't seem right, and I didn't _feel_ like myself if I wasn't high on that damn brain enhancer. Nothing else in the world mattered... except that boost."

"So what happened?"

"A long story filled with sighs is what happened. But, suffice to say, eventually I realized I had a problem. I got help. I got clean. Haven't touched Mentats or the Party-Time version since, and I've tried to be careful whenever I might need to use anything that could get me hooked on something worse. And that's why I'm sympathetic to Julie's desire to help these guys get clean. I've been in their shoes. I know what it's like. And I know how hard it is to take that first step towards getting help." I paused, then added under my breath "Maybe I can do some good for once."

Before I could continue with any more introspection, I felt something metal and heavy shove itself against the back of my head. I turned around in my chair and was face to grille with ED-E, who was floating nearby and beeping, and had obviously nudged me to get my attention.

"ED-E? What's up?" I asked the robot. ED-E beeped, and floated slightly to his right, in a motion vaguely reminiscent of someone gesturing with their head to look somewhere. I looked out in that direction, to see what ED-E was "pointing" at.

On the far eastern side of the fort, near one of the larger tents, I saw one of the Followers doctors staring at us. Specifically, it looked like he was starting at ED-E. I couldn't really tell from this distance, but he looked like he could be about my age... maybe a little older. His hair was a sort of wavy corn silk blonde, parted to one side, and he wore a pair of square, thick rimmed black spectacles. When he saw me take notice of him, he quickly started looking around, as if to try and hide the fact that he was staring, and he walked away from his spot into one of the tents.

"What's up? What's going on?" Veronica asked. I got up from my chair, and pointed over to where the man had been standing.

"One of the Followers was staring at ED-E."

"Makes sense," she said with a shrug, getting up as well. "ED-E is kind of unique. I haven't seen any other robots around here quite like it."

"Maybe so, but he was really staring. Like he was spying on him, or something."

"Spying? Don't you think that's a bit paranoid?"

"If he wasn't spying, why would he have ducked into a tent to hide the moment he realized I'd spotted him?" I turned to the robot floating next to me. "So, what do you think - go for the direct approach? Find out what his interest is?" ED-E beeped approvingly, and bobbed up and down in a sort of nod.

Less than a minute later, the three of us entered the tent where he had tried to hide. He wasn't that hard to spot. He was standing with his back to us in front of an unstable looking desk, on top of which were numerous vials and tubes and chemistry equipment, clipboards, stacks of notes, and a dizzying number of pencils - all of which seemed to be broken. Next to the desk was a bookshelf, each shelf filled with books stacked both in rows and on top of one another, all in various states of legibility and disrepair. Pinned to the side of the tent were papers, charts and graphs. He was just standing at the desk. At first glance, I thought he might have been working on something, but then I realized he wasn't actually moving.

"Hey there," I called out to get his attention. He jumped slightly, in a motion that seemed just a bit too well rehearsed, and turned around swiftly to face us. He smiled at the two of us with an awkward, toothy grin.

"Oh... uh... hi there. I'm Arcade. Arcade Gannon. If you're looking for medical help, you should try one of the other doctors. I'm just a researcher. Not even a particularly good one."

"I'm Sheason," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "I'm actually wondering why you were staring at ED-E."

"Eddie? Who?" He asked, and I jabbed a thumb at the robot floating to my right. "Oh, the eyebot. Sorry, I didn't realize I was staring."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you," I said narrowing my eyes. "So, you mind telling me what your interest is in my robot?"

Arcade shifted his stance backwards, looking from Veronica, to me, and then to ED-E, glaring almost imperceptibly at the eyebot. I saw his right hand rest on his coat, right near his hips... and from inside the folds of his labcoat, right above where his hand had come to rest, a glint of something shiny and metal caught my eye. And then he shifted his stance again, straightening his coat and clearing his throat.

"I'm just a little wary of... I'm not a big fan of robots. Especially ones like yours. Some of these robots, you look at them the wrong way, don't screw in a vacuum tube right... and then -" he snapped his fingers "- the next thing you know, you're a pile of glowing ash on the ground, and someone's stepping out of a vertibird to sweep your remains into a Nuka Cola bottle."

"So, is that why you have a pistol at your side?" I asked. "In case you run into any rogue robots?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gannon said just a little bit quickly.

"This isn't just a pistol!" Veronica exclaimed suddenly. Both of us turned, and I was incredibly surprised to see her at Arcade's side (How did she get there without me noticing? Wasn't she standing next to me a second ago?) with a very sophisticated looking energy weapon in her hands. She was holding it up to the light and examining it with wide eyes and an even wider smile. "This is a Glock 86 plasma defender - designed by the Gaston Glock AI in 2035! This is an incredibly sophisticated and very rare piece of pre-war technology! Where did you get this?"

"Give that back!" Arcade said as he snatched the pistol out of Veronica's hands. Very quickly he examined the gun, and put it back in it's holster, covering it with his labcoat. "Alright, fine. I carry a pistol. What of it?"

"You said you were a researcher?" Veronica asked.

"What kind of a researcher needs to carry around a plasma pistol?" I added.

"Glock 86 plasma de-" Veronica began, but I held up my hand to stop her. If I left her to it, she'd probably ramble on about the pistol for hours.

"There's no way I'm going to say that every time. It's a plasma pistol." I turned back to Arcade. "Point still stands, though. That's some pretty heavy armament you're packing - are you researching giant radscorpions or something?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he said, straightening his labcoat. "My research is primarily focused on finding alternative treatments for common illnesses and injuries. Stimpacks out of barrel cacti and other fantastic improbabilities. As far as fruitless wastes of time go, it's quite noble in its aims." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "As for the pistol, I only carry it because it's dangerous in the Mojave Wasteland. Much more dangerous than any place back west."

Something wasn't adding up. If that plasma pistol was as rare as Veronica claimed it was, how could someone like a researcher for the Followers of the Apocalypse come across it? He didn't look the sort suited to scavenging, and he probably couldn't afford it. And yeah, the Mojave Wasteland was proving a bit more dangerous than other places, but it's not like there was a deathclaw behind every rock... unlike some other places I've been. Before I could finish figuring it out, Veronica distracted me. Perhaps bringing her along as a mobile distraction wasn't the best idea.

"Illnesses and injuries? What sort?" Veronica asked. She'd been looking over the notes pinned to the side of the tent while I had been sizing up Arcade. He shrugged.

"Cuts, lacerations, broken bones. Infections resulting from all of the above. Common cold, influenza... take your pick. There are plenty of ways to die out here, and most of them, surprisingly, don't have anything to do with war. Just common human fragility."

"Why?" I asked. Arcade looked at me questioningly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why are you trying to make stimpacks out of barrel cacti? I mean, you said yourself that it's a 'fantastic improbability,' so why even bother?"

"The past hundred years or so, the Followers have managed to get by using salvaged medical supplies from the old world. But the side effect of medical success is that more people live longer," Arcade chucked grimly, with a sick sort of desperation in his laugh. "Funny how that works. Eventually, we'll run out of hospitals to loot. We need new ways to produce those supplies. Or maybe old ways, if this research goes anywhere." He sighed, and looked at the notes on his desk. "But I doubt it will."

"You don't really sound all that enthusiastic about it."

"I'm enthusiastic about helping people, but nihil novi sub sole."

"What was that?" Veronica asked. "Isn't that the language Caesar's Legion speaks?"

"Caesar can cite Cato to suit his purposes. Many people have spoken Latin over the centuries... some of them were quite pleasant. It's unfortunate that the language is now associated with the gentlemen across the river."

"Where did you learn to speak that?" I asked.

"Not from Legion, if that's what you're getting at. Books, sheet music, gladiator movie holotapes... I've picked up bits and pieces here and there. The Followers have extensive libraries, but we all draw water from the same old well. Even Caesar."

"Do you know much about Caesar?" A thought had occurred to me: eventually, I was going to have to head to Cottonwood Cove and infiltrate the Legion stronghold. And this guy seemed to know a bit about the language Legion spoke. Maybe he might know something that would be useful.

"I don't really know anything that the others couldn't tell you," he said with a shrug.

"Others? What others?"

"Caesar was one of the Followers." Arcade said matter-of-factly. "Before my time, of course. He wanted to rebuild the new world in the image of the old. A sad story of good intentions gone bad. In that regard, he's hardly unique. If you set aside his leadership capabilities, extensive knowledge, and ruthless cunning, he's just another jerk who steps on people to get his way."

"I'm a bit confused about something, actually," Veronica spoke up. She'd been shuffling through his papers and notes while we'd been talking. "If you're enthusiastic about helping people, but you think all this research is pointless, why do it? Why not provide medical help like the other Followers?" Arcade turned to her and very calmly pulled the research notes out of her hands.

"Please don't touch my things anymore," He said, shuffling them and putting the notes back on his desk. "And to answer your question, not all Followers are 'people persons.' And even though I'm sure I'd do more good in the short term with my medical expertise, I'm just not all that good with people. Besides, someone needs to do the research, so I don't have a problem with Julie sticking me back here. Out of sight, out of mind, you know? I'm fine doing research back here, even if it is a bit boring..." he sighed. "...and pointless..." he looked down at his shoes and sighed again. "...and a complete waste of time."

Eventually, he looked up and realized the three of us - even ED-E - had been staring at him. He tried to wave it off with a chuckle. "Don't mind me. I'm just voicing my thoughts so they don't burrow out of my skull in a fit of abject despondency."

If you ask me now, I couldn't tell you why I said what I said next. But before I even really realized I was speaking, I heard words come out of my mouth.

"Why don't you come with me?"

He looked at me with an expression that matched my own internal surprise. Veronica too, as she looked back and forth between the two of us. ED-E just hovered behind me and beeped warily.

"No offense," he said. "but why should I go anywhere with you?"

When I gave my answer, it was almost like I could feel House speaking through me.

"We got off on the wrong foot, I admit. But things are pretty bad around here - Julie made that much clear. And as it happens... I'm in the unique position of being able to help. I want to actually make a difference for once in my life, and I can tell that you want to help too. I don't want to offer you an incentive as crude as money, but there will be plenty, trust me. What I want to do is offer you what my employer has offered me: a future, not just for you, or me, or Veronica, or any of the others who are following me, but for what remains of the human race."

Both Arcade and Veronica stared at me for a few moments, and I could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he considered the offer.

"Huh... That seems appropriately resolute and yet vague." He rubbed his chin and regarded me carefully. "But why? Why are you interested in someone like me?"

To answer his question, I grabbed the collar of my jacket and stuck my thumb through the hole in the right shoulder. Arcade smiled and chuckled a bit when he saw the bullet hole.

"I've been in more than a few scrapes over the last few days. I figured that I might need someone who knows a bit more about medicine than me."

"Alright," he said, still chuckling and stroking his chin. "I guess I can give you the benefit of the doubt. At least for a little while. Just one thing: your employer better not be Caesar. If you plan to help the Legion, this is going to be a brief relationship. I may not have all the answers for how to fix the problems in the Mojave, but Caesar taking control isn't part of the solution. Fair?"

"That's fair," I nodded. "Just so long as you're clear about something as well: ED-E has saved my skin many times, and if you do anything to him, I won't be held responsible for what I do to you. Is that fair?"

"I suppose that's fair enough," He glared at the eyebot. "Just don't ask me to re-attach your arm when your pet murder machine goes into 'search and destroy' mode. Give me a few minutes to pack up and get some things in order, alright?"

"Sounds good," I said, nodding. "Just one question I forgot to ask earlier. Nihil novi sub sole. What does it mean?"

"Oh. Sorry. It's Latin for 'there is nothing new under the sun.'"

* * *

While Arcade was gathering his things, and arranging it with Julie so he could accompany us, Veronica pulled me aside.

"Do you really think it's a good idea to bring him with us? I mean, he obviously doesn't like ED-E all that much. There's just something wrong with somebody that suspicious of robots. And there's just something... he seems a little shifty, you know? Like he's hiding something."

"Oh, and of course, you've never hidden anything from anybody, have you?" I asked with a smirk. She opened her mouth as if to argue, and then snapped it shut with a blush.

"Fair point."

"Yeah, I agree with you that he's obviously hiding something. It seems like everyone that's getting attached to this steadily growing caravan is hiding something... But you have to admit, we could use the medical help. And I figure that if what he's hiding is important enough, we'll find out about it eventually. As for ED-E..." I took a look at the eyebot, who hovered in front of me, and beeped quizzically. "Honestly, I'm not worried. ED-E can fly, and he's armed with a laser. I'm sure he can handle himself well enough, can't you boy?" I patted his chassis with a ringing metal sound, and he chirped proudly. "There is something I've been meaning to ask you, though."

"Yes?" Veronica looked at me from under her hood with a questioning glance.

"When you grabbed Arcade's plasma gun. How did you get it without either of us noticing?"

"What can I say," she shrugged. "I'm a procurement specialist, like I told you. I'm very good at procuring things. Often without people realizing." She smiled a faux-innocent smile. I just shook my head.

"And here I thought Cass was a kleptomaniac. I'm gonna have to worry about both of you stealing anything not nailed down, aren't I?"


	16. Chapter 15: High Times

Chapter 15: High Times

* * *

_Welcome back to the program. This is Mr. New Vegas and I hope I'm not coming on too strong. That was "Cobwebs and Rainbows" by Bruce Isaac, undisputed king of the lounge scene in New Reno. Or, at least, he was - no one up north has seen or heard anything from Mr. Isaac in months. If any of my lovely listeners happens to see him, tell him Mr. New Vegas would love to hear him sing again. We'll have more news for you at the top of the hour, but right now I've got more classics to play just for you. Here's a personal favorite of mine: it's the original Mr. Las Vegas, Wayne Newton, singing his signature piece from 1963, Danke Schoen. _

* * *

"Hey, Sheason?" Veronica called out after me as the group of us walked down Las Vegas Boulevard. "Why are we heading this way? I thought Dr. Usanagi's clinic was outside Freeside's gates, in the other direction."

"You're right. It is," I said with a shrug. "You know what else it is? Several miles away, and I'm not gonna walk that far with a bullet in my knee. I'll go when I can get the Corvega from the 38's garage and I don't have to walk all the way there."

"The 38?" Arcade spoke up from behind me. "You don't mean..." He looked up and out, directly at House's fortress.

"Yeah, the Lucky 38," I said, looking back at Arcade. "Didn't I mention? I thought I mentioned - my employer is Mr. House." He looked at me with slack-jawed astonishment.

"Mr. House? THE Mr. House?! The man who nobody has seen in 200 years? The man who rules The Strip with an iron fist? The man who has an army of dangerous, trigger-happy robots with military grade weapons at his beck and call? THAT Mr. House is your employer?"

"Yeah," I said nodding. "I suppose so."

"Well... that puts your offer in a new light..." Arcade said with a chuckle. "And it certainly explains some things."

"What do you mean, explains some things?" I asked.

"It's just some things that I've heard today. Mr. New Vegas has been talking all morning about how The Tops is closed, and House is telling everyone not to worry. But there've been a lot of rumors going around since last night. I heard some of the junkies, and even some of the doctors in a nearby tent talking about it earlier - some guy people have been calling The Courier waltzed into The Tops, started shooting up the place, killed the owner, then walked into the Lucky 38 like he owned the place."

I couldn't help but shake my head.

"How the fuck do people find out about this stuff?" I asked Veronica. She just shrugged.

"Well, be honest - our little stunt at The Tops wasn't exactly subtle," she said with a chuckle. "I mean, you smashed Swank's face, yelled at everyone to get out before everything went to hell, we all shot the place up... What I want to know is why the rest of us didn't get mentioned! I mean, you didn't go in there all alone. There was me, Cass, Boone, ED-E..." ED-E beeped his agreement.

"So... the rumors are true then?" Arcade said in an almost hushed whisper.

"True enough, I guess," I replied. "The thing I don't get is how people even know I'm a courier. Couriers don't normally shoot up casinos."

"Probably because of the other news story," Arcade answered. When he was met with more silence and blank faces, he elaborated. "Don't either of you listen to the radio?"

"Not really," Veronica was the first to speak up. "There aren't that many radio stations that cover all the Mojave, and I'm not really a fan of the music any of them play."

"Nope," I shook my head. "I know it may seem surprising, given the Pip Boy and all, but I didn't actually grow up in a Vault, so I never really developed a taste for all those classic pre-war songs. Besides, the only other radio I've ever had was in my Corvega, and that was stolen in Gecko about 5 years ago."

"Wait, you didn't grow up in a Vault?" Veronica spoke up.

"Look, we'll talk about where I came from later," I said, trying desperately to get the conversation back on track. "Arcade, what was that you were saying about a news story?"

"It's been one of the stories Mr. New Vegas has been running since... Thursday, I think. He reported that there was a courier who'd been shot in the head close to Goodsprings and recovered. Next thing you know, all the townies are talking about The Indestructible Courier. I'm guessing from the scars on your face that there's at least a little truth to that story?"

Almost as a reflex, I rubbed the scar on my temple. It was worse than I thought. People were actually calling me The Indestructible Courier? That was just silly.

"Ok, yes, there is a _little_ truth to the story. Yes, I did get shot in the face, and yes, I did get better, but here's what really happened..."

So I spent the next ten minutes or so explaining to him most of the events that had happened to me since Wednesday morning, from waking up in Doc Mitchell's and fighting off the Powder Gangers all the way up to delivering the Platinum Chip to House.

"Damn," he said when I finally finished. "Ok, so the people talking about it have gotten a few things wrong, but that's still pretty impressive. Did you really help a pack of ghouls go into space?"

"You know," Veronica called out. "you still haven't answered my question from earlier. Where the hell are we going?"

I came to a stop, and pointed at the sign not 20 yards distant. It was vaguely reminiscent of the arch in New Reno, except it looked cobbled together from bits and pieces of all manner of neon signs. It said "FREESIDE" in letters of all shapes and sizes, and marked the entrance to Fremont Street. The sign itself was suspended between two street lights.

"Did you forget about the addicts Julie told us to help?"

"Oh. Right."

* * *

The Atomic Wrangler reminded me a lot of the Shark Club back in New Reno. Only not quite as well taken care of. It was dark, smoky, and smelled like stale beer and vomit. So, business as usual as far as a bar in the wasteland was concerned. The stench spoke volumes though, since the ceiling was three stories high. Off to the side against one of the walls was a stage... well, to be honest, it wasn't really a stage so much as a raised wooden platform with some red curtains hung behind it that were faded and looked moth eaten. There were a few people sitting at cocktail tables, and the bar only had about half a dozen people sitting there. Off in the back was a door big enough to drive my Corvega through, and on the other side I could see the slot machines, the roulette wheels, the blackjack tables, and at least one craps table.

"Hey!" I heard a female voice call out over the general murmur of the crowd. The owner of the voice was behind the bar, wearing a shabby grey suit with black pinstripes and a black tie. She glared at us with a sneer and cold, brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was tied behind her head in a bun so tight, it looked like it was trying to pull her face off. "We don't serve it's kind here!"

"Wait, what?" was all I managed to say before she spoke up again

"The robot!" She said, pointing at ED-E. "The bar is for paying customers only. Automatons that can't drink just take up space."

I looked at ED-E, back at the woman behind the bar, and then back at ED-E.

"But he can fly," I said, pointing a thumb at the hovering eyebot.

"Look, the Atomic Wrangler? This is my place, and my rules. You don't like it? Tough."

I shrugged, and turned back to ED-E. He floated in front of me and let out two pathetic insistent beeps. It almost sounded like a dog whimpering. I patted his chassis with a soft clang.

"Hey, c'mon buddy, don't be like that. We don't want to cause any trouble, right? At least, not here, and not right now. Head back to the 38, and we'll meet up with you there. I promise." With a resigned whirr, ED-E bobbed away and out the door.

"Alright," the woman behind the counter said as the three of us sat down at the bar. "Now that vulgar business has been taken care of, what can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for some people," I told her. "I'm guessing you're one of the Garret twins, right? I heard you might be able to help." She just chuckled and smirked at me.

"Looking for someone, eh? Alright, who're you looking for: Santiago, Kinky Kelly, Calamity, or FISTO?"

"I'm sorry?" I blinked, confused.

"I'll warn you about the last one, though, you'll probably have to fight my useless brother for it. Last I checked, he was still upstairs, busy doing the wang-dang atomic tango with that sexbot."

"Oh, no, no, no!" I said quickly, as soon as I realized what she was talking about. "I'm not looking for a hooker-"

"Escort," she corrected.

"Whatever. No, see, I'm looking for Bill Ronte and Jacob Hoff. Julie Farkas at the fort told me to look for them. I heard they might be found near here. Know where?"

"Yeah... I might know where you can find them," She said. And then she remained silent for a minute or two.

"Uh... Think you might be interested in sharing that with me?"

"You gotta make me interested," she said matter of factly. "What you're after is information, and information is a valuable commodity. Granted, the location of a couple of deadbeat junkies isn't worth much, but it's still information, and information is something you pay for."

"How about I buy a couple of drinks, will that loosen your tongue?" I deadpanned.

"Might help," she shrugged. "What'll you have?"

"Just a beer is fine," I said.

"It's a little bit early for me," Veronica spoke up. "Got any Nuka Cola?" The Garret sister nodded, and then turned to Arcade.

"So, what about you - what'll you have, handsome?" she said, placing a bottle of Nuka in front of Veronica.

"A rum & Nuka will be fine," Arcade said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "And, no offense, but you're not really my type."

From my other side, I heard Veronica mutter under her breath as she took a sip of soda: "Yeah, that's cause she doesn't have a dick." I'm still not sure if Arcade ever heard that comment or not, since she slid a glass of rum & Nuka in front of him at that moment. As soon as she put the beer bottle in front of me, I tossed the caps on the table, with a few extra, just in case.

"Alright... now how about you tell me where I can find the men I'm looking for?"

She was silent while she counted the caps, ignoring me completely. When she was done, she hit the top of the cash register at the bar with her fist, and the tray opened with a ka-ching! She dropped the caps inside, closed the tray with another ding, and smiled smugly at me.

"I don't know exactly where you can find Jacob Hoff, but your best bet is one of the abandoned buildings over by Mick & Ralph's at the other end of Fremont street, over near the east gate. That's where most of the druggies and junkies and chem fiends usually end up. Ronte on the other hand... he's a deadbeat and I don't even let him in anymore."

"Why not?" Arcade asked as he sipped his drink.

"He couldn't pay for booze, and he kept harassing the customers. If it wasn't begging them to buy him drinks, it was annoying them with tales of the 'good old days.' I honestly don't know where this guy gets off, but if he honestly thinks the old days were any good, he needs his fucking head examined."

"So where is he?" I asked.

"Last I heard, people said they'd seen him in one of the squats nearby. Didn't want to move too far from the smell of booze, I guess."

* * *

It didn't take us that long to find him. Most of the derelict buildings past the sign on Fremont Street were west of the Silver Rush and the Atomic Wrangler. There were a few squatters and drunks hanging around; most of them scattered as soon as we got close, but a few stuck around. A few caps, and we were pointed in the right direction.

Bill Ronte was sitting in a corner on a folded out piece of cardboard, leaning against the broken staircase with his head bowed and his eyes shut. He was bald except for a few wispy strands still defiantly clinging to his head, and his face was messy and completely unshaven with a big, scraggly beard. He wore a yellow stained shirt and a pair of dirty grey overalls. His feet were completely bare, but his left foot was bandaged. All around him were empty bottles, including shards of broken glass and a nearly black bloodstain on the ground near it.

"Bill Ronte?" I said. I didn't yell, but I spoke loud and forcefully enough to wake him up. He stirred and snorted, jerking his head as he woke up, looking around groggily. Finally his eyes settled on me and my companions.

"Oh, uh..." his voice was gruff and cracked. Not quite as bad as a ghoul, but still bad. "Hullo. You seen Dixon 'round? He said he'd be back today."

"You are Bill Ronte, right?" I asked, getting down on one knee to look him in the eye.

"Uh... yeah... yeah, I'm, um... yeah, I'm Bill."

"My name's Sheason. Julie Farkas sent me to help you sober up." As soon as I mentioned Julie's name, his eyes shone with recognition, his cheeks flushed with red, and he smiled stupidly.

"Julie? Ah, I love Julie... She's such a nice lady. One time, back in th'old days, I was workin' on the water pump, an' she came over, put her hand on my shoulder, an' told me I was doing a great job," He chuckled softly to himself, and I could swear I saw a bit of moisture in the corners of his eyes. He sniffed and continued. "Great job, she says! Well, I just choked up, didn't say nothin'. Compliments'r so rare these days, y'know?" He reached out to his side, grabbing one of the empty bottles, and made to take a drink, but he realized halfway to his mouth that it was empty. He upended the empty bottle and looked at it with a sad, sorry expression.

"Bill," I said, grabbing his hand, and forcing the bottle away from him. It didn't really matter that it was empty. "Julie sent me here because she's worried about you. You need to stop drinking."

"Drop drinkin'?" He cried out with a pained expression. "I can't stop, I've been drinkin' fer a straight month!" He coughed again, and looked back at me with glazed-over eyes. "Look, I've tried to stop, but... I can't... when I'm sober, it feels like I'm gonna die. I can't stop now."

"How can you even afford all this alcohol?" I heard Veronica say from over my shoulder. She'd entered the ruined building and was looking around at the myriad of broken bottles littering the ground.

"Dixon sells me booze dirt cheap," he coughed again. "It does the job, but it tastes like paint thinner. I swear that guy is tryin' to kill me, but what can I do? Even if I could afford it, drinkin' other booze doesn't cure the sickness like this..."

"Bill," I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked back at me. "Listen to me. Julie and the rest of your friends back at the fort? They miss you. They're worried about you. You need to kick the habit, and they can help. It would mean a lot to Julie... and I know you want to hear those compliments for a job well done again."

"Oh, Julie..." when he spoke, his eyes shifted back into focus, and the moisture I saw earlier finally turned into tears. "I've... I've really screwed things up, haven't I?" I nodded.

"It's not too late, Bill. You can fix this. I know you can. You know you can. Julie believed in you. You just need to believe in yourself." He nodded, and wiped his face with his arm.

"Yeah," he said with a mixture of a snort and a sniff. "Don't worry... I'll... I'll head over to the fort an' get some rest... This has gone on too long." He grabbed onto my arm, and I tried to help him up. As soon as he got on his feet though, he yelled in pain, and would've collapsed if I hadn't been holding onto him. Veronica rushed to his other side, and helped me pick him back up.

"Muh foot..." he wheezed out with a grimace. He was keeping his bandaged foot up off the ground. "I... I don't think I can walk..."

"Don't worry man," I said to him. "We'll get you to the fort. They'll help you out, don't worry."

"You go," Veronica said to me. "You still need to find Jacob Hoff. I can carry him to the fort, I remember the way, and he's not that heavy."

"Not that heavy?" Arcade scoffed. "You look like you're about 80 pounds, you won't be able to carry him all that way."

I looked at Veronica, who just nodded and smiled at me. It was hard to forget the armor she wore under the robe, and I remembered how surprisingly strong she seemed when I first met her. I couldn't be certain, but I had the distinct impression that it augmented her strength somehow. Or maybe she really was just a lot stronger than she looked. Who knows?

"Don't worry, I got him. Trust me. I'll meet up with you outside Mick & Ralphs, that's near where Garret said Jacob might be, right?"

"Yeah, we'll see you later." I let go of Bill, and he slumped against Veronica. I couldn't tell if he'd fallen asleep. She just sighed, adjusted his arm across her shoulders, and carried him out the back of the derelict building.

"So!" I turned to Arcade after Veronica had left. "That's one down. Ready to go find the other one?" Arcade didn't say anything; he just looked pensive, stroking his chin as if deep in thought. "What? What's up?"

"It's just something he said, earlier, caught my attention," Arcade looked up at me, and his glasses fell down his nose. "That name - Dixon. I've heard that name before. He's one of the major drug dealers in the worse parts of Freeside."

"If he's a major drug dealer, why would he be selling paint thinner dressed up as booze to a drunk who can't pay for it?" I asked.

"I don't know," Arcade admitted. "But I think we may need to find this Dixon if we're really serious about helping cure Freeside's drug problem."

* * *

Arcade and I walked down Freemont street, towards the east gate. After we crossed Las Vegas Boulevard, I decided I should try and strike up a conversation with my bespectacled companion.

"So," I said, putting my hands in my pockets as we walked. "Tell me about yourself, Arcade."

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, we're going to be working together, right? I think it's important to get to know the people I'm working with, so... tell me about yourself."

"I'm really very boring," he said adjusting his glasses. "You'd get better stories out of a Freeside junkie. I mean, we're going to visit one anyway, you should ask him."

"Oh, come on, you can do better than that."

"No, really!" he said with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. "Have you ever snorted a ground-up cazador venom sac? Neither have I, but I can guarantee you that a Freeside junkie has." That was the second time I'd heard the word cazador. What the hell was a cazador? I still had no idea.

"Do you always deflect personal questions, Arcade?" I asked. He merely shrugged.

"Only to obfuscate my past association with a fascist paramilitary organization."

"That..." I blinked, trying to parse what he'd said. "That was a suspiciously specific denial."

"That's because it was a joke," he said. "To be honest, I will deflect personal questions at any opportunity."

"Why don't you like talking about yourself?" After talking so much with Veronica, talking with someone who just wasn't as candid was a jarring change.

"Some people do. I just... don't."

"C'mon Arcade, I'm asking you because I'm interested."

"Alright," he sighed. "Fine, if you really want to know. I'm thirty-ish...Well, ok, late thirties. I was born..." he paused, and scratched the back of his neck. "... west of here. I was an only child and spent most of my time with my mother. My father died when I was young and I never got over it. Oh, and I like medicine and reading books about failed Pre-War socioeconomic policies." He looked at me and chuckled.

"Right now, I'm sure you're asking yourself 'Why hasn't some lucky man swooped in and scooped this bachelor off his feet?' Like I said. I'm boring,"

H-uh. Arcade was gay. I totally did not see that one coming. I wonder if Veronica had actually known that...

"Look, I appreciate that you're trying to be friendly. I'd just rather not discuss it."

The rest of the walk (which wasn't that long) was spent in relative silence. When we finally got to our destination by the east gate, across the street from Mick & Ralphs, it wasn't all that hard to find the building where the drug addicts congregated. It looked like at some point it had been a three story building, but the ceiling and many of the walls had collapsed inwards. I could see people all around, dressed in rags, and gazing at us from the windows and cracks in the walls while trying to remain unseen. Near one of the doors, a woman was leaning against the wall with her back to us. She vomited violently, and then collapsed next to the pool of sick.

Arcade and I entered the ruined building, and a man walked up to us. What little hair he had was grey, as was his stubble. He had bags the size of nuclear warheads under his eyes, and he hunched as he walked towards us with crossed arms. He was shaking visibly, despite trying to hide it.

"Hey," he spoke to me, in a hurried tone. "Hey, uh... do you have any chems buddy? I could really use a fix."

"Do you know where I can find Jacob Hoff?" I asked, ignoring his request for chems. He seemed taken-aback.

"Well.. yeah. I'm Jacob Hoff. Why? Who are you?"

"My name's Sheason. Julie Farkas back at the Old Mormon Fort told me you could use some help." He just chuckled grimly when Julie's name was mentioned.

"Eh... Julie's a saint, but I don't need any help. I feel young and strong, man, just so long as I get my chems. You got any?" He started scratching his arm.

"You don't look young and strong," Arcade said to him.

"He's right. You look pretty bad, Jacob. You need to get clean - for Julie if nothing else."

"That's stupid," he said, continuing to scratch his arm. "I don't need to get clean, I feel great! No worries. My guy will be here soon enough, just you wait, man."

"Who's supplying you?" I asked, suspicious that I already knew the answer.

"Fuck, man," he said. "If I had two caps to scrap together I'd buy the materials to make my own, but my damn hands won't stop shaking. I get my shit from this guy, Dixon. I mean, yeah, something about him seems sketchy, but the last time I stopped, I felt like I was going to turn inside out. I'm mostly just buying his shit just so I don't feel sick. Speaking of, do you have any spare caps?"

"Jacob, listen to yourself," I said to him, trying to be forceful (but not rude.) "You should know better than this - you said yourself that you can make your own chems. You should know what misuse does to people. You should know what they're doing to you."

"Julie is really worried about you. The others at the fort want to help you get well, Jacob," Arcade added. Jacob shook his head.

"Alright, fuck it, fine. I've quit before. If you really care so much, then get me some shots of Fixer to calm down these shakes. I'm gonna need at least..." he waved one of his hands, and looked up, like he was trying to pull the words out of thin air. "...ten shots to get me through the week. From there, the Followers should be able to help." I just shook my head.

"Jacob, we're not going to give you more chems - even if they are detox chems. What you need is to be strong. You need the support of your friends to get through this." I stared at him, and he looked back at me with an understanding, nodding his head.

"Yeah... yeah, I think... I think you're right. I mean, hell, I've been through worse. I'll go to the fort and see if the Followers can watch over me while I recover."

"Are you sure you can make it on your own?" Arcade asked. Jacob nodded.

"Yeah... it's not that far. And like I said, I've been through worse. Fuck it, maybe this time I'll stay clean." He started to walk away from us, but I put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Just one thing before you go - this Dixon guy. What does he look like?"

"Uh..." Jacob looked up again, looking like he was seriously racking his brain. "I dunno. Kinda reddish, dirty skin, has a mustache, likes wearing a brown ballcap with goggles sitting on the brim. Wears a big coat, got all his shit inside it. Trust me, you can't miss him."

Jacob walked away from the two of us and around the corner. As soon as he disappeared, Arcade turned to me.

"Is it just me, or did he give up a little too easily?" He asked. I nodded in agreement.

"Oh yeah. Someone that bad, itching from the withdrawal? I'm pretty sure he was just blowing me off."

"So what was the point of all that then?"

"Found out what Dixon looks like, didn't I?" I said. "If we get rid of the source, we stop the flood."

* * *

"So, you found Jacob without me, huh?" Veronica was leaning against the wall of Mick & Ralph's with crossed arms and a smirk on her face.

"Yeah," I said, as Arcade and I walked towards her. "But we're not done. We gotta find this guy Dixon. He's the guy who was supplying Bill and Jacob."

"And, half of Freeside's junkies, if any of the doctors at the fort are right," Arcade added. I nodded.

"We need to convince him to shut up shop, and leave Freeside."

"Alright," Veronica said. "So, how do we find him?"

I almost didn't hear her. My attention was focused off in the distance, down Fremont street and past a number of locals either milling around or walking by. Leaning up against a building near a lamppost was a man smoking a cigarette, wearing a long tan coat, with a brown ballcap on his head that had goggles sitting on the brim. Even from this distance I could make out the mustache, and could tell this was the man we were looking for. But the fact that Dixon was just standing out there in the open wasn't what was keeping me enthralled.

Jacob's description hadn't really put a clear image in my head, so I hadn't made the connection, but now that I finally got a good look, this Dixon was almost a spitting image of the man who first got me hooked on Mentats so long ago. The man who sold them to me. The man who encouraged me to keep taking them, long after they started ruining me. That man was responsible for a very, very dark part of my life, filled to the brim with self loathing and hatred. The logical side of my brain knew it couldn't be him - that was so long ago, and this Dixon... there was physically no way they were the same man. But even if he wasn't (and how could he be?) this Dixon fuckhead was doing the same thing to who knows how many other people that my old dealer did to me.

"Hey!" Veronica snapped a finger in front of my face a couple of times, pulling me out of it. "Sheason! You awake?"

"Yeah, I just... that's him." I said, pointing right at him. "I think we should have a talk with this asshole."

As soon as the three of us approached him, he looked us up and down. He took one last draw from his cigarette and flicked it away.

"Well, hello there," he spoke to Veronica, looking her up and down and licking his lips. "What can I do for _you _today?"

"You Dixon?" I asked. He turned his attention to me, and I finally got a decent look at his face. I kind of wish I hadn't; he had a very eclectic collection of skin diseases.

"Maybe."

"We should talk."

"Alright," he said, still seeming to appraise me. "Step into my office, and we'll talk." He motioned with his hand to a nearby alleyway. It was between two buildings, and very narrow. He walked in first, and the three of us followed him. When we were well out of sight of the main street, he turned back to us and held open his coat. The inside of it was lined with syringes, pill bottles, and about a dozen Jet inhalers. "You lookin' for a fix man? I got what you need."

"I'm not looking for drugs." I stated flatly. He closed his coat and sneered at me.

"You're not? Then why the fuck are you wasting my time?"

"I just wanted to know if you're the man who supplies Bill and Jacob." At that, he loosened up and let out a laugh.

"Oh, yeah man! Those cats are out of their domes addicted to my shit. They can't get enough. It's pretty hilarious to watch."

"Hilarious?" I asked, my voice taking on an unintended hard edge. "What, are you trying to kill your customers?"

"Pfft," he waved his hand. "They ain't customers. Those fools are NCR. I just love seein' those squatters in agony. We were doin' just fine before those little shits came here and made a mess of things. We don't need NCR eggheads wandering around confusing things for the rest of us," He looked at the three of us again, and his eyes settled on Arcade - and on the Followers patch on his labcoat. He pulled a box of cigarettes out of his jacket, and lit another before he spoke again. "What the fuck is this?"

"I'll tell you what this is," I said, narrowing my eyes at him. "You're going to stop selling drugs in Freeside, and you are going to get out of town. Right now."

Dixon just sort of stared blankly at me for a few seconds, cigarette hanging loosely out of his mouth. Eventually though, he took a long draw, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and blew a cloud of smoke right in my face. I closed my eyes involuntarily against the stinging cloud of smoke.

"Fuck off man. This is my city, and I do what the fuck I want. I'm not gonna leave town just because some retard with a doctor and a little girl tell me to. I mean, who'd make me leave anyway? The bitch in the hood?"

"Exactly," I said. His eyes widened in confusion, and I heard Veronica shift her stance - good. She knew what was going to come next. "Veronica, hold him down."

"What th-" In a flash of brown and silver, Veronica rushed past me, grabbed Dixon by the throat, and jammed him against the wall. He struggled against her grip, but couldn't move.

"Ok, here's what's going to happen. And I really hope you're listening. You have two options: the first is you leave Freeside, and you never come back. This option lets you keep your slimy parasite life, you pathetic waste of blood and organs. The second is I let Veronica here do whatever she wants to you."

"And you know what I like to do?" I couldn't see her face, but I could tell she was smiling as she unwrapped the power fist in front of Dixons face. It let out a gout of steam, and in a flash, she punched the wall right next to his head. The wall - which was plaster with brick underneath - splintered like balsa wood where the fist had hit. "I like to _punch things_."

"I can't be certain, but I don't think you'll like the second option very much. So. What'll it be?" I could see him struggle against her grip, and try and choke out words, without actually making any sounds. I just sighed. "Veronica, think you can loosen up a bit? He can't answer if he can't breathe."

"The first one!" he managed to choke out after she loosened her grip. "Fuckin' a, man! The first one!"

"Good. Alright, let him go." As soon as she let go, he collapsed into a heap and started choking madly, clutching his throat.

"You're going to get out of town," I growled at him. "And don't think you can just hide in a side street and carry on tomorrow. If you don't leave, I _will_ find out about it. Do you understand me?" He nodded weakly and continued to choke. I turned my attention to Arcade and Veronica. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."

The three of us turned around and walked away from the alley. After about a minute, Arcade turned to me and asked "Was that really necessary?"

"Maybe not," I said with a shrug, sticking my hands in my pockets. "Felt good though."

"I thought it was funny," Veronica chimed in.

"Hang on a second," I said, patting the pockets of my jeans.

"What's up?"

"I think I lost my keys somewhere... You guys go on ahead. Veronica, think you can show Arcade to the 38? I'll catch up a bit later." She nodded, and I watched the two of them walk off towards Las Vegas Boulevard.

As soon as they were out of sight, I pulled That Gun out from it's spot in the back of my pants and I headed back towards the alley where we'd left Dixon. The drug dealer was still at the back of the alley when I returned. He'd picked himself up off the ground, and was dusting himself off when he noticed me walking towards him. I don't think he noticed the hand cannon.

"Hey, what the fuck, man? I already told you I was going to leave! What the fuck else do you want me to do?" He seemed hostile right up until I got close enough to point That Gun directly at his face. At which point all the color drained from his scabby face, and he held up his hands. "WHOA! Hey! What the hell man!"

I just kept walking forward, the barrel of That Gun pointed at his forehead. My arm didn't waver, even in the slightest.

"I know your type," I finally said. "You say you'll leave. You say you'll stop. But you won't. You can't. All you know how to do is spread poison, and destroy lives. Giving the poorest, most disadvantaged people the means to slowly kill themselves. A man like you gave me the means, and it nearly destroyed my life thirteen years ago."

"What... what are you talking about man?" His left eye twitched, and I pressed the barrel of That Gun against his forehead.

"Give me a reason. Just give me one good reason I shouldn't put a bullet in your skull right now."

"I... I..." he stammered, his eyes fixed on That Gun.

"Times up."


	17. Chapter 16: Recon

Chapter 16: Recon

* * *

_This is Mr. New Vegas, fanning the flames of your passion. Our top story this hour: Refugees at Bitter Springs are giving startling accounts of the Legate, known as Lanius, who is said to be Caesar's top field commander. One refugee told us that "The Legate took over an 'under-performing' squad of troops by beating its commander to death in full view of everyone." The Legate then ordered a tenth of his own troops to be killed by the other nine-tenths. And you thought your boss was a pain. The news this hour has been brought to you by The El Cortez Hotel and Casino: Where locals come to play. And now Nat King Cole reminding us what really matters with Love Me as Though There Were No Tomorrow. Because in New Vegas, hey, you never know._

* * *

"Hey, Veronica? Are you doing alright?" I asked Veronica as she, Arcade, ED-E and I made our way down Las Vegas Boulevard, towards the Strip's front gate. She looked up at me, confused.

"Huh? Why do you ask?"

"Well, you've just been... quiet, is all. You've been pretty quiet ever since we left the fort. Is something wrong?"

"Oh," she said, comprehension dawning on her face. "I'm fine. I've just been thinking, that's all."

"Thinking about what?" When I asked, she looked over her shoulder at Arcade. ED-E was floating behind the two of us at the front, and Arcade was behind ED-E keeping his distance.

"About the Brotherhood," she said, keeping her voice low. I guess she didn't want Arcade to know she was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel just yet. Given how he reacted to ED-E, I couldn't blame her. "You can't help but notice that the Brotherhood barely exists to the people out here. We're like an urban myth. No real presence on the outside."

I shrugged. That was true enough. Until Veronica, I'd never met anyone who was a member of the Brotherhood. Or, maybe I had, and I just didn't know it. If nothing else, I was fairly sure I'd never run into a Paladin - someone in powered armor carrying a laser rifle is kind of hard to miss.

"We just don't adapt like we should," she continued. "Used to be that all you needed to get your way was a suit of power armor and a laser rifle. But now... people are armed and organized. They're not afraid. But we still stick to our old approaches, because it's all we know."

"Sounds like whoever's in charge is living in the past," I offered. "I mean, I don't really know, since I don't know much about the Brotherhood, but it sounds like they're eventually going to have to change."

My words reminded me of an old world saying: adapt or die. I don't know who said it first, but if there was one law in the wasteland that was it. And, according to Veronica at least, the Brotherhood was refusing to adapt.

"I think you're right. I mean, power armor and laser rifles are effective - but only if you've got bodies to fill the suits. And since we don't really take on new members, we're starting to get desperate. If something doesn't change, then the empty suits are going to become all that's left of us... and I get the feeling that if I don't take matters into my own hands, the change won't come in time to make a difference."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," I said. "But to be honest, I can't really comment one way or another, since I don't really know too much about the Brotherhood."

"If you wanted me to tell you about the Brotherhood, all you had to do was ask."

"Thanks. And I'll probably take you up on that later. Now... probably isn't the best place to talk about it." She nodded in understanding, looking around at the scenery of Freeside as we walked. "There was one other thing I wanted to ask you, though."

"Shoot," she said, much more amiable now that she'd apparently gotten that off her chest.

"How did you know that Arcade was gay?"

"Lesbian's intuition?" she said with a shrug.

* * *

When the elevator doors opened to the high roller suite in the Lucky 38, we were greeted by Cass who was leaning against one of the nearby walls.

"Hey, there y'guys are! I was wonderin' where y'all had run off to." She said with a smile.

"You're looking better," I said. She really did look considerably better, especially given the state we'd left her in this morning. She just shrugged.

"Well, b'tween Veronica's hangover cure, sleepin' it off, an..." she reached behind her and pulled out her flask. "... hair o'the dog that bit me, I'm doin' fine." She put the flask in her back pocket, and looked at Arcade behind us. ED-E hadn't taken the elevator, and was likely floating outside one of the windows. "So, who's the new arrival?"

"Cass, this is Arcade. Arcade, Cass. He's a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse." I did my best to get introductions out of the way. Cass nodded at the doctor, and then chuckled when she looked at me.

"You gotta start collectin' coins or somethin', or else we're gonna run out of space here." She moved her head from side to side, and her neck cracked with several audible pops. I tried not to wince. "So, ready to go?"

"Wait, what?" I blinked. "Go? I just got back."

"Well yeah, but earlier y'asked if I wanted to check out th' other caravan, but I was too hungover. I'm not hungover any more, so I thought we could go'n check it out."

"Why not?" I sighed, shrugged, and turned to Veronica and Arcade. "So, what are you guys going to do? Either of you two want to come with?"

"I should probably stay and help Arcade get settled," Veronica replied.

"I was going to stay and get some food a bit later. It was nice to meet you, though," Arcade said as he started looking around the suite. As soon as he was in the kitchen and out of earshot, Veronica shuffled towards me and spoke up.

"Besides, I need to figure out a way to break the whole Brotherhood thing to him," she practically whispered under her breath. I nodded. At that moment, I saw Boone exit from his room. He looked... exactly the same as when I'd seen him earlier tonight. He still had his rifle, his revolver strapped to his hip, his knife strapped to his boot, sunglasses still on despite being indoors. I swear, he always looked ready to fight.

"Hey Boone - Cass and I are gonna check out the other sacked caravan. We might need an extra set of eyes. Interested?" I asked. Boone looked at me with his usual stony, emotionless expression.

"Sorry. I can't come. Something's come up." And that was all he said.

"Well!" Cass smirked and slapped me on the shoulder. "Guess it's just you'n me then. Just like old times."

"Old times?" I raised an eyebrow at that. "What, you mean Thursday? A whole two days ago?"

"Has it only been a couple days?" She asked as the pair of us entered the elevator. "Weird. It's seemed longer..."

"So, where exactly is this other caravan... er, what was it called?"

"Th' name of th' company was Griffin Wares. An' bring up the map on your Pip Boy, I'll point it out." I pulled up the map on my Pip Boy and showed it to her. She scanned it for about a minute or so as the elevator descended, and finally pointed at the screen. "Here. I think that's about where it is."

The spot she pointed to was on route 95, far north of Vegas. The spot was just south of the turnoff to the road that led up to Mt. Charleston; route 156, if the map was accurate. If the scale of the map was any indication, then it was roughly 25 miles away... as the crow flies. Which meant we'd definitely need the Corvega to get there and back before nightfall.

"Alright. Shouldn't take us too long. But before we head up all that way, there's something I need to do first." As if on cue, my knee started to flare up again. I reached down and rubbed my knee, in a vain attempt to lessen the ache. "I need to get this fucking bullet out of my leg."

* * *

"I can't believe you've been walkin' around all day on that," Cass said, taking a draw from her flask. We'd just left Usanagi's clinic, and were now on the road toward the other caravan site. ED-E was zooming around the car keeping pace, as per usual.

"I can't believe she charged 300 caps for a single bullet," I grumbled. "I mean, she didn't even really do anything. It was all the Auto Doc." I hadn't bothered to get the bullet out of my shoulder. That one didn't hurt, and I wasn't going to waste caps fixing something that wasn't broken.

"It was behind your kneecap. Besides, it could be worse," Cass shrugged. "I remember hearing about a doctor in Shady Sands who charges at least that much a session, and all he does is talk to people once a week."

"The hell kind of doctor just talks to people and doesn't actually fix them?" I asked. "I thought doctors were supposed to patch people up when they got injured." Unsurprisingly, Arcade shifted to the front of my mind since he introduced himself as a 'researcher.'

"I don't know," she said, taking another drink. "I think he called himself a psycho-trist or something. Some kind of old world thing, for people who've got more money than sense."

To be honest, I wasn't focused on what she was saying. I was starting to get a bit worried about how much Cass was drinking. I was no slouch when it came to downing alcohol, and one of the first things I admit is that liquor makes dealing with the wasteland easier. But seeing Bill Ronte earlier, and the sorry state we'd found him...

"Hey, Cass?" I said after mulling it around my head for a bit. "Do you ever... consider... not drinking? Sometimes?"

"Say what?" I couldn't tell if she was more angry or confused. "Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Well, ok, not actually QUITTING," I said, admittedly backpedaling a bit. "Hell, even I couldn't just quit drinking entirely. But just... I dunno, going easier?"

"No... no, not at all," As if to punctuate her point, she took another drink, then looked back at me. "Seriously, where'r you goin' with this?"

"I'm just worried about you, that's all. I mean, it hadn't escaped my notice that you drank three bottles of scotch, one after another, the same day you found out what happened to your caravan. That would kill most people." I didn't say it, but a thought lingering in the back of my mind had me wondering if that had been her goal.

"Like I told ya before, my liver's indestructible," she said, patting her gut, and shrugging it off somewhat worryingly. "Besides, you don't have to worry about me drinkin' paint thinner or anythin' like that."

"I don't?" I asked.

"Nope. Fer one thing, someone who sinks that low, they got no willpower whatsoever. I drink whiskey 'cuz I like the taste, an' my moonshine's not that bad either. But if I don't have either, I wouldn't stoop so low as t'drink _paint thinner _or somethin' equally toxic, because that's just stupid, an' I'm not an idiot_. _Besides, I'm a high-functioning drunk."

"Are you now?"

"Course I am. I've never understood it, but I'm much better at math when I've had a few drinks. S'one of th' reasons I was able t'keep my caravan in the black for as long as I did."

"Until you switched to transporting water," I offered, remembering one of our previous conversations. "You said it yourself, if you hadn't switched from whiskey to water, you'd end up with nothing but empty bottles at the end of each run."

Cass opened her mouth like she was going to argue, but paused, considering what I'd said, and instead just let out a single soft chuckle.

"Alright then," she said "S'a fair point. Tell you what: if I ever drink as much as I did last night, an' I get that big of a hangover again, then y'have my permission to beat the shit out've me," She paused for a moment, rubbing her chin and looking thoughtful, and then added "An' I promise that I won't drink as much ever again after that. That sound like a fair deal?"

"I'm not going to beat you up, Cass. Not even if you give me permission."

"Well yeah, but that's only 'cuz you know you'd lose," Cass said, taking another sip from her flask.

"No, I'm not going to beat you up because you're my friend. Besides, I don't hurt girls," Unless they're raiders and are threatening to anally violate me with a chainsaw knife and the business end of a broken bottle, but that's another, rather unpleasant story entirely. All Cass did was laugh.

"Oh please, yer a man! All I have to do is flash these in yer direction, an' you'll turn into a pile of mush on th' floor," She grabbed her shirt collar as she spoke, and made her chest jiggle rather vigorously - which I only saw out of the corner of my eye, because I was watching the road and was most certainly not staring at her tits.

"Ok, that might work on me," I conceded. "But I bet you that tactic wouldn't work on Boone, and I know for a fact that it wouldn't work on Arcade. Probably wouldn't work on ED-E either."

"Well yeah, you'd need a protectron in a bikini to distract th' eyebot with sexy," she said with a laugh. That got the two of us laughing at the stupid image that conjured up so much, neither of us really noticed when ED-E floated next to the driver's side window. Granted, we did notice when he started beeping angrily at us.

"What's his problem?" Cass motioned with her flask at the robot floating 60 miles an hour sideways next to us as we drove along.

"I think he heard your crack about the protectron in the bikini," I said, failing to stifle a chuckle. I swear, there's no way I could say those words in that order with a completely straight face. "It's entirely possible that you may have made him mad."

"Maybe it turned him on. I mean, he _is_ a robot, he does have an 'on' switch," she said with a smirk. I just shook my head.

"That joke was bad, and you should feel bad," Apparently ED-E agreed, letting out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a guttural growl.

* * *

One of my initial worries about this outing was that Cass was wrong about the location, or that we'd never find it at all. Not that I doubted her or anything, just that she'd only heard about this from hear-say. I was scanning the landscape as we drove along, and it was as desolate as anything I'd ever seen. It was completely flat in every direction, with mountains on either side of us off in the distance; we were literally in the middle of nowhere to such an extent that Vegas had disappeared entirely from view.

Suddenly, the road ahead was no longer flat.

"What is that?" I asked, squinting.

"I think... that might be th' caravan," she said, leaning against the dashboard. "I can't tell, still too far off. Y'have any binoculars?"

"Yeah, in the glove box." Cass rummaged around in the glove box for a bit before pulling out the binoculars. To this day, I have no idea why she took so long finding them; the binoculars aren't that small, and the glove box isn't that big. "So? What do you see?"

"Oh yeah, that's definitely th' caravan."

A few minutes later, I pulled the Corvega to a stop right below a billboard several yards away from the wrecked caravan. I don't know why, but as I got out of the car, my eyes were drawn to the billboard. It was advertising the Silver Rush, one of the buildings in Freeside. I hadn't gone inside, but I'd assumed that it was a casino (since everything else in Vegas seemed to be). Since the sign looked like it had been out here before the bombs fell, it probably was a pre-war casino. But judging from the very strategically placed paint that looked relatively new, proclaiming that it was the "Van Graff's" Silver Rush, "We sell weapons!" and "Fully charged with no extra charge!" I could probably make an educated guess what it was now.

I drew myself away from the billboard and walked over to the wreckage of the Griffin Wares caravan. The most obvious piece of detritus littering the site was the massive brahmin skeleton, still hitched up to the front half of a wagon. The back half of the wooden cart had been broken and lay in pieces littering the ground. Several boxes were scattered, along with other bits of trash. There weren't any ash piles like Cass' caravan, but there was something else that caught my eye - something green. I knelt down and took a look at... well, I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. It was a pile of some kind of semi-solid... well, goo was probably the best word to describe it. I didn't dare touch it, because it was glowing green slightly, and for all I knew, it was radioactive. It didn't take me long to figure out what caused it. Discarded nearby was a plasma rifle, with several of the tubes running along the side either missing or damaged. I held it up for Cass to see.

"So, more energy weapons hit this caravan," she said nodding. "Place has been picked clean. This... this is Brotherhood level murder here."

"Is it?" I asked. Part of me was glad Veronica wasn't here… but then I thought about it. Veronica does seem awful quick to jump to violence.

"Yeah, but they don't do things like this. They wouldn't leave somethin' like that, fer starters. This was done with another purpose," She looked around the caravan site with a much different expression than the one she wore when she was looking at her own caravan. Her eyes didn't betray any hint of sorrow, not this time; instead, they held a look of fierce determination, and a weird sort of analytical cunning as she scanned the bits and pieces of the wreckage. Perhaps she was able to look at this more objectively now that it wasn't her caravan. "Let's poke 'round a bit, see what we can find. Might be a clue somewhere, show us who did this."

The two of us got to work. Aside from a few discarded and empty energy cells, I didn't find much of anything else after the pile of goo and the plasma rifle. If we had gotten here a few months ago, there probably would've been ash piles around as well, but if there had been any, they would've been blown away by the wind within the first few days. And judging from the brahmin, and how there wasn't a lick of meat anywhere on the two headed mutant cow, anything that could've been a body would've surely been eaten by coyotes already.

"Hang on, what's this?" Cass spoke up. I stopped my search and went over to see what she was looking at.

"Found something?"

"Yeah, t'was wedged under one of th' metal boxes over here," She held out a badly faded and yellow piece of paper, and unfolded it so the two of us could see. "Looks like a map."

"Are you sure?" I asked honestly. The drawing on the paper could have been a map... but of what, I couldn't tell you. It was very crudely drawn, and just looked like scribbles.

"Yeah... I think this is supposed t'be Vegas. Look, here's th' wall around th' Strip an' Freeside, here's th' 95, here's th' long 15, here's Hoover Dam an' Boulder City..." she pointed at several of the scratches, and traced her finger along a couple of the lines as she spoke. I squinted... and could almost make out what she was talking about. The only thing that stood out to me were three X's drawn in a different color ink than the rest... and then the bottlecap dropped.

"Wait, hold on - look at these X's here... if this is the 95, like you said, than this X..." I pointed at the one near the top left of the map "... this X is where we are now."

"And that X down there must be..." she paused, swallowed hard, and continued "My caravan."

"But then that must mean the third... there's another caravan site out there that's been hit." I said, a grim realization dawning.

"That's fucked up - third X is out in th' middle of nowhere... I wonder if it has anything to do with th' numbers on th' bottom of th' page." That's when she pointed to a set of chicken scratches near her thumb.

"Those are supposed to be numbers? It looked like their pen had run out of ink to me." It took me a minute to decipher the horrible handwriting, but eventually I was able to work out that the letters and numbers at the bottom of the page spelled out: N36° 8.75', W115° 3.18'.

"So... do you know what that means?" Cass asked. I shrugged.

"Fucked if I know. Maybe it's some kind of technical thing - I bet if Veronica were here, she'd know what it meant. I mean, it's probably something to do with that third X."

"Yeah... something's wrong. I can feel it. We should-"

I never found out what she was going to suggest we do, because at that moment she was interrupted by a sound like a thunderclap setting off an explosion right above our heads. The two of us ducked instinctively, and ED-E let out a series of panicked beeps and flew behind my car for cover. I looked up and saw a flash in the clouds above us, a split second before the clouds split apart like a gaping wound in the sky, making way for something very large, very metal, and very on fire hurtling out of the sky and dropping directly at the two of us.

"Look out!" I yelled above the racket, and without really thinking, I took hold of Cass by the shoulders and urged her away with all my strength just as I started running myself. She didn't really need much in the way of prompting, and quickly ran out of the incoming... whatever it was, and dove behind my car for cover. The flaming disk in the sky howled and screeched, and I turned around just in time to see it spin in the air, veer wildly off course, and head off away from us and to the north. A trail of dark smoke hung in the air after it passed overhead, and with a flash and boom like nothing else on this earth, it crashed into the desert just north of us.

For several minutes, the three of us hid behind my car before anyone said or did anything. Finally, I got up, pulled Roscoe from it's holster, and checked the clip to make sure it was loaded.

"What're you doin?" Cass asked through gritted teeth, getting up from behind my car. I pointed off in the distance, towards the steadily rising cloud of smoke.

"That thing - whatever it is - just fell out of the fucking sky," I said, holstering Roscoe and moved towards the driver's side of the car. "And I intend to find out exactly what the hell just damn nearly killed us."

* * *

It didn't take much to find what I was looking for, and it certainly didn't take long. All I had to do was follow the trail of smoke, over terrain that could only have been more flat if it was a dry salt lake. What we found was... not exactly a crater, but close enough. There was a long trail of displaced earth where the metal disk had started hitting the ground leading to... whatever it was.

The ground all around it was still hot and smoldering, and it was still on fire. Of course, when I got out of the car, Roscoe already drawn, I noticed for the first time that the flames weren't the right color. They burned blue and green rather than orange, and parts of it were spitting sparks randomly. When I caught a glimpse of the clear bubble dome (that was cracked and broken) at one end, the first thing that popped into my head was the kind of cockpit you'd see on an old world jet fighter - the sort of thing I'd only ever seen in holotapes. But this, whatever it was, most certainly wasn't an aircraft, because it was entirely the wrong shape. It looked more like a tank, but without wheels. But to be perfectly honest, it was shaped like a saucer... but that was just stupid. Saucers don't fly. Then again, neither do tanks.

"The fuck is this?" Cass said as she got out of the car. Her shotgun was also at the ready.

"Don't look at me," I said, trying to see any more details through the smoke. "ED-E, do you know what this is?" All I got in response was a few frantic sounding beeps, same as before.

And then I noticed a few of those beeps weren't coming from ED-E... they were coming from my Pip Boy.

I glanced at it quickly, but long enough to see that directly in front of me, obscured entirely by the plume of thick smoke, was something the Pip Boy's radar had indicated was hostile. So I motioned to Cass and ED-E, and the three of us readied our weapons, hoping to be ready for whatever emerged.

I'll tell you right now, I wasn't ready at all.

What stumbled out into view from behind the cloud of smoke was... something that was very much not a human. It had two legs, two arms, and a head, but that was where any similarities ended. The creature couldn't have been more than three or four feet tall, and its limbs were just so skinny and tiny... they almost looked atrophied. The head, on the other hand, was massive and bulbous, with greenish-grey skin, and completely hairless. Its eyes were huge, and completely black; it didn't look like it had a nose or ears, just holes where they should've been, and a tiny slit for a mouth. It looked like it was wearing some kind of full body suit made out of a silvery blue foil, marred and torn, with a weird green liquid staining parts of it. The creature doubled over, and started coughing; when that same green liquid came pouring out of its mouth, I realized it must've been blood.

"What the fuck..." I said aloud. I couldn't help myself. Ghouls, fine. Super mutants, fine. Giant insects, no problem. But this - this was unlike anything I'd ever seen before!

Of course, my exclamation got the attention of whatever it was. It stopped retching blood, looked up at me, and reached for a gun on its belt. As fast as my body would allow, I dove for the ground. Good thing too, because the... whatever it was, fired at me with that gun. There was a bright flash, a sort of twanging sound (like someone hitting a high tension cable with a wrench), and a blue ball of plasma sizzled directly over my head right where I would've been. At the same moment, I fired Roscoe, Cass fired her shotgun, and ED-E fired his laser. I don't know if Cass or I even hit it, but the laser struck the creature right smack in the middle of its chest. With a cry that sounded almost like a quack, it fell over backwards and hit the ground with a thud.

I checked my Pip Boy quickly - no more hostile blips on the radar. So, I got up, dusted myself off, and cautiously made my way to the corpse. Maybe if I got a closer look at it, I'd figure out what it was.

Getting a closer look at it didn't in any way help me figure out what it was. In fact, all it did was disturb me. For one thing, its hands were... there were only two fingers and a thumb, and each digit on its fingers were as long as one of my whole fingers. Its eyes were entirely too large, especially compared to how small everything else on its face was, and speaking of its face - it had more wrinkles than an eighty year old man.

The weirdest thing of all was the gun - it was made out of some odd grey-blue metal, and looked like a very large egg with one stick coming out of one end for the barrel, and another stick coming out of the bottom for the handle and trigger. There were three lights running down each side, and another light on the back. The barrel had a few rings right before the end, and the top of the gun had a fin which could have been the sight. It was the strangest looking energy weapon I'd ever seen in my life.

"Holy fuck," Cass said, shouldering her shotgun as she got a close look at the corpse. "I know what this is."

"Well, feel free to enlighten me any time, because frankly I got nothing."

"It's an alien!" She practically shouted. "It has to be - I mean, look at it! It's just like those holotapes of the alien autopsy from 300 years ago."

"An alien," I deadpanned.

"Yeah, y'know, like the kind that crashed in Roswell. Outer space aliens! UFO's and flying saucers and government coverups, shit like that. There are tons of holotapes on th' subject!" Realizing how that must've sounded, Cass quickly added "Not that I've seen all of 'em, just a couple. Y'know. To pass th' time."

"Aliens," I said again, still trying to make sense of the concept. "From outer space."

I was just about to dismiss the idea as completely bonkers, but then I took stock of what had just happened: The two of us had nearly been killed by a flying saucer that had fallen out of the sky, it crashed with a sound that was not of this earth, the wrecked flying saucer burned with a fire that didn't look like fire from Earth, and finally - the cherry on top of the cake - a little green man that was obviously not human in a space suit had shot at me with a ray gun.

With some measure of regret, I let out a resigned sigh. As absurd as the idea of aliens from outer space inherently was, and in defiance of part of my brain screaming that there must be some other logical rationale, I couldn't think of anything else that even came close to explaining what the hell had just transpired here.

"When the fuck did my life become so weird?" I said aloud.


	18. Chapter 17: Back in Your Own Backyard

Chapter 17: Back in Your Own Backyard

* * *

_Empty_

_I found myself in the middle of a big, empty desert. It was vast, flat, and completely lifeless as far as I could see. It stretched for miles in every direction. I looked around, trying to find any kind of reference point anywhere on the horizon... but no. There weren't even any mountains. I've been in some desolate, inhospitable places before, but this..._

_There was nothing for it. So, I picked a direction and started walking._

_I don't know how long I had been walking when I started thinking about that drug dealer, Dixon, and the last moment before I killed him. Then I realized that I wasn't actually remembering this so much as watching it unfold on the desert in front of me as I walked. I saw myself put the gun to his head. I saw myself pull the trigger. I watched as Dixon fell lifeless to the ground. Both Dixon and myself dissolved into sand and disappeared as I continued forward on my trip towards nowhere._

_It made me wonder... why had I killed him? It's not like he was threatening me. He had said he was going to leave, and I told him that I'd give him at least a day to pack up before I came back. His unintentional and uncanny resemblance to my old dealer brought forth a plethora of spiteful emotions that I'd thought I'd gotten over years ago... or, at least, buried so deep that I didn't think I'd have to worry about them again. But then those feelings re-emerged, just as strong as the day I got clean, and I lashed out at the cause of those emotions, just as violently as I had lashed out at my real dealer so many years ago._

_Had he deserved to die? Maybe, if what Arcade had said about Dixon supplying half of Freeside with chems was true. But should I have been the one to kill him, and like that? Had I really gotten so comfortable with murder and numb to the horrors of it over the years that I executed people at the drop of a hat now?_

_And that's when I started thinking: just how many people had I killed over the years? I racked my brain... and I realized I didn't know for sure. Images flashed in my head - and before my eyes on the desert sand - of all the people I'd killed in one way or another. Most of them were so indistinct that they mixed together, and I couldn't tell one murder from another. The only one that truly stood out from the rest was Benny._

_You wouldn't think that my job as a courier - someone hired to deliver packages and messages from place to place - would garner such a high body count. But the fact is, murder and death are an all too common fact of life in the wasteland. Life is relatively safer for citizens of the NCR who live in places like Vault City or Shady Sands, but out in the wastes? If someone born in the wastes has reached their 16th birthday, it's a safe bet that they've killed at least one person - if only to stay alive._

_Involuntarily, I started thinking about the first person I ever killed. I was still travelling and working with the caravan that brought me up. Their names, their faces... I couldn't make them out. Everything felt like a fading echo. But I remembered the ambush, and watched as it played out in front of me. No matter how fast I walked or ran, the image was still there in the desert, always in front of my eyes. _

_A gang of raiders had set traps in a narrow canyon, waiting for us, and started shooting at the caravan as we passed. The guards fought most of them off, but the raiders were looking for easy prey. They shot at anyone without a gun first, and only after they finished with that did they start shooting the guards. I got scared, so I dove under one of the wagons and played dead. The bullets tore through the air and the dead began to pile up around me. But I stayed still as a corpse._

_Eventually there was only one caravan guard and one raider left. And then there was me. Everyone else was dead - even the brahmin were dead, either shot on purpose by the raiders just for the hell of it or caught in the crossfire. The last surviving guard - a girl, dressed in leather armor and barely over 19, I think - had been maimed badly. Both her legs were bloody and mangled, and one of her arms fell limp at her side. She tried to crawl away, but the last raider wasn't so badly hurt as she was. I watched in stunned paralysis under the wagon, still pretending I was dead, as he picked her up by the neck, and threw her against the canyon wall._

_Growing up in the wastes, one of the first lessons you learn is what raiders do to people they capture. Not because it's pleasant in any way, but because it's something you need to know. As the last raider approached her, laughing with an insanely murderous glee, I didn't know if he was planning to rape her, mutilate her body, or tear her apart and eat her. Any or all of those was a possibility... and from the warnings I'd been given, it might not be in that order._

_And that was when I saw the shotgun. _

_It was lying discarded on the ground behind him. I moved quickly and quietly, but he was laughing at her so loud that I think he only could've heard me if I was banging metal pot lids together. I leveled the shotgun as quick as I could and blew the top of his head off. The corpse teetered on its feet for a few seconds, but eventually gravity won out. The dead raider collapsed backwards, spilling blood and brains all over the canyon floor._

_I put down the shotgun and tried to help her - there were a few medical supplies in one of the wagons - but she refused them all. She was too far gone, and she knew it. The amount of blood gushing out of her legs was growing rapidly every second. All she wanted... or, at least, all she asked... was for me to hold her. She told me that she didn't want to die alone._

_Half an hour later, she stopped breathing. It was another hour before I let her go. Two hours after that, I finally stopped crying. I never learned her name._

_I was 12 years old._

* * *

I woke from my bed with a start, positively dripping with sweat. Another nightmare. Of course. I checked the time on my Pip Boy: it was almost 9 in the morning.

"Well, that's better," I said aloud, hacking to loosen up the gunk in my throat. "At least my stupid brain had the decency to wait until I'd finished sleeping before waking me up with a nightmare..."

* * *

"Has anyone seen Boone?" I called out a few hours later. I had been looking around the suite, trying to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. I'd checked his room, because I hadn't seen him since Saturday; to my surprise, his room was as pristine as the day we'd all entered. The bed looked like it hadn't even been slept in. Hell, it didn't look like he'd used the room at all.

"Say what now?" Cass poked her head out of what I had started calling the game room: it was a room with a couch, two easy chairs, a television (off, and completely useless), a pool table, two dart boards, and a poker table in the corner.

"Who's missing?" Veronica walked out of the kitchen, Nuka Cola in hand.

"I'm looking for Boone," I said looking in the kitchen. "Have either of you seen him?"

"Didn't he say somethin' came up yesterday?" Cass asked, leaning against the doorframe to the game room.

"Are you guys talking about the guy in the red beret?" I heard Arcade's voice sound from within the game room. Cass, Veronica and I all stuck our heads in the door. Gannon was sitting in one of the easy chairs, reading what looked like a medical journal.

"Yeah, that's Boone," I said with a nod, but something connected in my head. "Have you not met him yet?"

"Not really. He departed down the elevator very shortly after you and Miss Cassidy left for the caravan site yesterday. I haven't seen him since, and he didn't really introduce himself when I arrived." I was starting to get seriously worried now. Boone was a crack shot, but even I knew he was fucked in the head. A few days (at the very least) of not sleeping, and being missing all night, combined with a room that he obviously didn't use... that wasn't a good combination.

At that moment, ED-E zoomed into the game room through one of the open windows. He beeped frantically, and the three of us standing in the door jumped out of his way as he flew inside. Arcade glared at the robot, and went back to reading.

"I don't suppose you know where Boone is, do you?" I asked the floating eyebot, half joking. What I got in response was ED-E bobbing up and down in place, like he was nodding his head... and then something really surprising happened. My Pip Boy beeped at me, and I looked at the screen. It was completely blank, except for one single word:

Follow.

And with that, ED-E zoomed back into the game room, right over Arcade's head and back out the window to the outside.

"Th' fuck was that about?" Cass asked, tipping her hat up with her thumb as she watched the robot leave. I lifted my Pip Boy so she and Veronica could see the message ED-E had sent me.

"Well, that's certainly direct," Veronica said with a smirk. "So... are we?"

"I'll go warm up the Corvega," I said with a nod. "Cass, you coming?"

"Of course. I gotta get th' fuck outta here anyway. Gettin' antsy."

"What about you, Arcade?" I called into the game room as Cass and Veronica got into the elevator. "You gonna put down the book and join us?"

"As tempting as it may be to leave this tomb, I think I'll... give it a miss, this one," Arcade said, barely looking up from his medical journal.

"You're staying put because you'd have to follow ED-E, aren't you." It wasn't really a question.

"It's entirely possible that's the reason, yes," He wrote down some notes on a nearby piece of paper. "Have fun searching for the handsome man in the red beret."

* * *

I knew ED-E was capable of considerable speed, since he was able to keep up with my Corvega over the last few days... but to be honest, I never realized until that day just how fast he could go. As soon as we got clear of Freeside's east gate, ED-E really put the hammer down. I was having trouble keeping up with _him_! The eyebot was zooming around, darting in and out of the ruins of broken neighborhoods, and even waiting for me to catch up in places.

Don't get me wrong - my car isn't slow. I've gotten it up to 165 miles an hour before. On the other hand, it weighed just under two and a half tons, and that was without passengers or anything in the trunk (and it always has stuff in the trunk). Because the suspension was built for rough terrain and not cornering, I needed a very flat, empty stretch of nothing to get it up that fast. And because ED-E could fly, the sharp corners he was making didn't really affect him in the least.

"So where do you suppose he's taking us?" Veronica asked from the passenger seat. On the way to the car, she'd called shotgun; I half expected Cass to fight her for it, but she just shrugged, got in the back, stretched out, and tilted her hat forward over her eyes.

"I have no idea," I said honestly. "I mean, hell, I'm still trying to work my head around how he sent a message to my Pip Boy."

"Well, sending a message to a Pip Boy isn't that difficult," Veronica replied. "It's a handy bit of kit, and it's able to send and receive highly encrypted messages with ease. If ED-E has any kind of wireless transmitter, sending a message would be child's play."

"I suppose you know how to send a message to a Pip Boy, right?" She nodded. "Was that something you learned in the Brotherhood?"

"Sort of," she shrugged. "I learned it from Father Elijah."

"Father Elijah... You've mentioned him before, haven't you?" I asked. She nodded again. "Was he your dad?"

"No," she shook her head. "Father is a title. He wasn't my dad, but he did look after me after my parents passed. Elijah was our chapter Elder when we came East. I learned a lot from him. I would say he was my tutor, but that doesn't really cover it. The whole chapter brought me up, really, but he made sure of it. I never had a grandfather - not that I knew, anyway - but Elijah was what I'd imagine a grandfather to be."

"So, you followed him from California then?" I asked, remembering her comment from the other day about how she was from California.

"It was by his request, actually. He cleared it with the other Elders... somehow. They sent him East to look into the Hoover Dam," She paused, her ever present smile fading somewhat. She looked off in the distance away from me, and her voice took on a slightly melancholy air. "There was a time when I'd have begged to follow... watch him at work."

"I'm guessing something changed?" I asked.

"He did," she said, doing her best to keep her voice level. "For years, he fought with the Council of Elders. Taught me to question our direction... but he'd become more out-of-touch than all of them. The Brotherhoods' interest is in old technology, and he wanted to explore developing new tech. There were other ways he wanted to push... other weapons, with ethics questions attached. Rather than deal with him, they just sent him East. On our way to the Dam, he demanded we stop at HELIOS One to examine it. While we were there, our scouts reported that the NCR had taken the Dam. He was furious... called it 'children playing with a bomb.' But he was mad because we'd lost its power. What we'd use it for... he didn't care."

"Forgive me for asking this," I said, scratching my head. "But how is that different from how any other Elder would've reacted? I'm still a bit iffy on some of the details about the Brotherhood."

"Other Elders are cautious," she said. "When they discover something, they respect it, learn its limits, consider how to preserve it. It used to drive Father Elijah crazy. He liked to learn limits too, but only so he could push them. I mean... that's not to excuse the other Elders - they all covet technology for its own sake. Some are just more..." she paused, searching for the right word. "...fanatical than others."

"Did you ever try and talk some sense into him?"

"Yeah... once." She cleared her throat. "He... I couldn't help him. He just didn't listen. And the idea that people talked back to him... If he could have made the Brotherhood act like machines, ordering them around with the push of a button, he would have. Even so, I still learned a lot from him."

"So..." I chose my words carefully, realizing this was probably a tender subject. "What did you learn?"

"I learned what I don't want to become," she said, her voice taking on a mournful edge, wavering slightly. "In the end, there was just him and his vision... Nothing and no one else."

The two of us sat in the car in silence for a while. The only real noise (aside from the engine) was Cass softly snoring in the backseat. Finally, I decided to break the silence.

"So what happened?"

"He disappeared."

"Disappeared?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yeah. Last time anyone saw him was in the battle at HELIOS One. I wasn't there. He gave orders to hold the plant until it could be reactivated. But he ran out of time, and the NCR overran it. Everyone thought he was dead... but then I got a note from him at a comm station. That's... how he liked to talk, even to me. He wasn't really good at face to face."

"So what was in the note?"

"It... it was strange. Even for Father Elijah. As much as it pains me to say it, he's always been unstable, but this was something else entirely. I don't want to say he was delusional, but I don't know what else to call it. The only thing familiar about it was the signature."

"Signature? What, like signing a piece of paper kind of signature?"

"No, no," she shook her head. "I mean like a radio frequency kind of signature. He always used a specific kind of radio frequency and a unique kind of dual encryption that I've never seen anyone else use. That's how I knew it was actually sent from him. He said the Brotherhood was doomed, and that he'd return to save us. But the way he said it... I don't know... He said he'd return with one of the greatest treasures of the Old World, make the Mojave like it was meant to be... wipe the slate clean..."

* * *

ED-E came to a stop a few miles south-east of Vegas, in a place my Pip Boy labeled as Henderson. I pulled the Corvega to a stop at the edge of an intersection, and checked the map on my Pip Boy - we were about 7 or 8 miles away from the 188 Trading Post. I nudged Cass awake, and the three of us left the car.

It didn't take all that long to find out why ED-E had led us here. ED-E was hovering close to a collapsed building that looked like it might have been some kind of shop before the war, but was now abandoned... except for the four Legion corpses littering the ground. Cass let out a low whistle.

"Damn... what'cha think happened here?" she said, nudging a foot of one of the Legion soldiers with the barrel of her shotgun. I knelt down and looked at the bodies closely. They looked fairly fresh - probably dead for less than a day. Three of them were dead from bullet wounds: one in the head and two in the chest for each. The last one, on the other hand, had not been shot, but instead had a very large knife buried up to the hilt in the middle of his chest, as well as a large gash across his throat.

"Boone happened here," I felt like I was stating the obvious.

The last dead Legionary was sitting up against the wall - and that was when I realized: the bodies had been arranged, and weren't lying where they died. I took a closer look at the knife, and tried to carefully pull it out. It was a bit stuck, so I really had to yank it free.

"What are you doing?" Veronica asked, leaning down. I showed the knife to her and Cass.

"It's Boone's bowie knife," I said. "It still has the blood on the hilt from that super mutant he killed the other day."

"I guess this was the something that came up," Veronica said with a chuckle.

ED-E flew around our heads, he beeped at me, and so did my Pip Boy. A different message flashed on the screen:

Fly Far Fly Fast.

* * *

We followed the eyebot as he flew along, just above the highway. We went past the 188, turned south on highway 95, and kept going. I saw the giant T-Rex of Novac approach in the distance, and at first I thought that's where we were heading... but then just as we got to the intersection where Novac sat, ED-E veered left, and went east down 165.

"Whoa!" Cass yelled, clutching her hat, sliding across the backseat and into one of the doors. "Easy there, sunshine! Little warning'd be nice!" It's entirely possible that I _may_ have jerked the car just a little too violently, trying to get onto the on ramp and avoiding one of the rusted wrecks partially blocking the entrance.

"Hey, don't blame me, blame the flying robot zooming around at a million miles an hour, changing directions at the drop of a hat!" I was suddenly glad Arcade wasn't in the car , and I wasn't entirely sure why.

"He's probably only doing 90," Veronica chimed in helpfully.

"Thank you, V, I was merely exaggerating for effect." I said with a sigh.

We followed ED-E for only 5 minutes after the turn before we came across a single solitary figure walking along the road. Even before I saw the red beret and the rifle slung across his back, I knew it was Boone. There was no one else it could've been. ED-E came to a stop and hovered in the air above him, and when he heard the Corvega approaching, Boone stopped and turned towards us.

"Hey stranger," I said, bringing the car to a halt less than two feet away from him. I grabbed his bowie knife off the dashboard, and handed it to him hilt first. "You dropped your knife a few miles back. Need a lift?"

"How'd you find me?" He asked, his face expressionless as he took the knife and put it back in its sheath. I pointed to the sky, and he looked up at ED-E, who merely beeped happily.

"So, what're ye doin' out here?" Cass asked, leaning out the back window.

"Just some business," He looked down the road, off in the direction he was walking before we caught up with him. "Didn't think it concerned you."

"Yeah..." I nodded. "Maybe it doesn't. But you helped me deal with my unpleasant business of finding Benny, and dealing with him. Only seems fair that I'd offer to help with yours. You know we're your mates. All you ever needed was to ask."

"There's no caps for this business. That's why I didn't mention it," he said, continuing to stare off in the distance. "The only thing on offer is dead Legionaries." He turned to look at me. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"That's not a problem," I said with a smirk. "That's a solution." Boone returned the smirk, and chuckled softly.

"Damn right," He said. "You and me, we're just a couple of problem solvers." And with that, he got in the backseat.

"So, where are we going?" I asked as I put the car back in gear.

"A small town just up the road," Boone pointed needlessly. "Nelson."

I remembered that name. I'd heard it only a few days before, the last time we were in Novac - Manny mentioned it right before all that nonsense at REPCONN:

_Caesars Legion? They've been taking territory just east of here. Last I heard, they took Nelson. If we… if I let our guard down, even for a minute, they might attack. All it takes for the Legion is for them to sense weakness._

"What's in Nelson?" Veronica asked.

"Legion camp," Boone replied. "Used to be NCR, till the raiding parties pushed them back. Now, most of the troops are at Forlorn Hope, about a mile and a half north."

"So, why are we going to Nelson?" I asked. "You know, just out of morbid curiosity."

"I got a call yesterday morning on my emergency radio," Boone reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a surprisingly compact radio, holding it high enough for me to see it in the rear view mirror. "It was from Ranger Andy."

"Who?" Cass asked.

"Retired NCR ranger, living in Novac. He took my shift in the dinosaur's mouth so I could leave. He's a decent shot, and has been looking to prove he's not useless the last few months."

"Why?" asked Veronica. "Just 'cause he's retired?"

"No. His leg is crippled. He was wounded in action several years ago against Legion. They use child soldiers, because they know we'll hesitate. The kid had a grenade." Boone said grimly. "He called me because he's seen increased Legion patrols the last two nights, coming from Nelson. And since I'm not stuck in the dinosaur's mouth anymore, would I be able to help?"

"Well, I hope the plan to help isn't just 'storm into Nelson and kill every Legionnaire we see until we're dead," I said, hoping - praying - in the back of my mind that wasn't Boone's plan. His silence wasn't exactly comforting. I added quickly "That isn't the plan, right?"

"No," He said, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. "Andy told me to talk to a Ranger Milo before doing anything. He's manning a roadblock on the 165, just outside the town."

* * *

Roadblock was a bit of an understatement.

There were sandbag barricades stretching far beyond the road to the edge of a nearby ridge, bunkers and watch towers built out of scrap metal, an old world deuce-and-a-half with the two-headed bear of the NCR painted on the doors parked a few yards from the road, and at least half a dozen NCR soldiers that I could see.

When I pulled the car off to the side of the road, an NCR Ranger approached. This guy didn't look like a cowboy, with a Stetson, sunglasses, and a kerchief a around his neck like the other rangers I'd seen at the Mojave Outpost; this man looked like a real soldier. The olive drab colored armor he wore looked like it was made out of the same kind of ceramic-composite material that made old world combat armor resistant to small arms fire. It certainly looked sturdier than the flimsy padding the rest of the NCR soldiers were wearing. Perched atop his head was a broad-brimmed felt hat with a high crown, pinched symmetrically at four corners - a campaign hat, I think is what it's called. He had a lever action rifle in his hands and at the ready as he walked towards me. The only thing about him that didn't immediately say "military" to me was his very impressive black beard he wore on his face.

"Hold up there," he said, holding up a hand to me as I got out of the car. "This area is locked down by the NCR military until we can dislodge those Legion snakes from Nelson. I'm afraid you're going to have to leave this controlled area."

"It's alright," Boone said, stepping out of the backseat. "They're with me. You're Ranger Milo, right?" The ranger looked at Boone appraisingly.

"I am. Who are you?"

"My name is Craig Boone. Ranger Andy up at Novac should've called to let you know I was coming."

"Ah..." Milo nodded slowly, realization dawning as he finally noticed Boone's red beret. "Yeah, Andy called earlier and said something about sending some help. Didn't think he'd get a First Recon soldier to help me out."

"Former First Recon," Boone replied simply.

"Still, your skills would be useful right now. You were at Bitter Springs when First Recon was sent there, right?"

"I was in a lot of places with First Recon," Boone said, stone-faced and with a well rehearsed response. "I don't really remember."

"So what's the problem with the Legion?" I asked, trying to find out just what we were supposed to do. Milo turned to me and scoffed.

"Hell, what _ain't_ the trouble with the Legion. A few Legion squads jumped the camp in Nelson while the troopers were setting up. Captured a bunch of gear and took the town. Couple of troopers too - got 'em crucified down near the center of town."

Images of Nipton flashed in my head - heads on pikes, bodies nailed to telephone poles stuck in the ground like crosses, a body burning on a pile of tires.

"There any way we can help?" I heard Cass say from the other side of the car. Milo just laughed.

"If you had a few dozen doses of Psycho on you, maybe we could pep these weepy troopers into charging down into Nelson and taking back the camp. I can't order them down - Rangers are a different branch, so I don't have authority - but these boys are as green as a Super Mutant's backside, and they'd probably start crying as soon as they saw the hostages get so much as a bruise. They don't have the stomach for it. So, I guess I'll have to settle for Boone helping me take out the Legion's trooper hostages."

Boone stiffened almost imperceptibly, but remained impassive. I think I was the only one who noticed.

"Take 'em out?" Cass blurted out. "You mean kill 'em? Why?"

"It's a dirty game the Legion likes to roll out whenever they get a chance. The troopers won't go down into the camp with their comrades at risk. Problem is, Ranger Milo doesn't want to play. If we take out the hostages, they've got squat for leverage."

"Can't we rescue them?" I asked. I looked to Boone. His face remained expressionless.

"Back at 'Ranger School,' they taught us not to run headlong into battle when you're outnumbered ten to one," Milo said. "You want to go down there and try to haul those crippled boys off those poles? You're dumber than you look. As soon as we clear out the hostages, they lose their advantage. They're down in a clearing, crucified on some telephone poles. I can cover you from the ridge with Carmine," he hefted his rifle, letting me know what he was talking about. "Just make it quick. These boys should be put out of their misery, not plinked to death with some old varmint rifle."

The four of us stood next to my car as the ranger walked away towards the ridge. ED-E hovered close by and beeped. We all looked to Boone - this was his fight. We were just along for the ride.

"So," I said to him. "What's the plan, boss?"

Boone was silent for a very long time. Even ED-E stayed silent, allowing Boone time and silence to think. Eventually, he turned to me, gazed at me from behind those sunglasses of his, and spoke up with a fierce determination in his voice that could melt steel.

"To hell with mercy killing. We're getting those men out of there."

* * *

Nelson was a lot smaller than I was expecting. There were less than ten buildings on the other side of the ridge, and only two dirt roads just off the broken paved road trying to pass for a highway. There were two guard towers like the ones built at the roadblock - one at each end of the town - and I could see two Legionaries standing guard at the closest.

Two muffled gunshots later, they fell.

"Let's go," I said. The group of us crouched low to the ground, approaching slowly and as silently as we could towards the town... all of us except ED-E, who was flying around, keeping watch high above us. By the time we got between one of the buildings, something began nagging at the back of my mind - where were all the Legion troops? I had been checking my Pip Boy's compass, but aside from the two in the guard tower, there weren't any nearby.

When I turned the corner, I finally saw the NCR troopers. There were three of them, crucified on telephone poles and facing one another. The platform where the telephone pole crosses were planted was surrounded by sandbags and piles of tires. Based on where they were and the buildings surrounding them, I could tell why Milo hadn't just shot them already - there wasn't a clear line of sight from the ridge to this part of the town. Which also meant he couldn't cover us.

And that was when everything went to hell.

"Profligate interlopers!" I heard a voice shout. On the other side of the platform where the troopers were crucified, a Legion soldier had spotted me. He drew a crude machete from his belt and rushed towards us; I took aim with Roscoe and he yelled again. "Die, in the name of Ca-"

There was an explosion of blood from his neck, and he toppled backwards before he could finish. Boone rushed past me, the barrel of his rifle still smoking. The rest of us followed him towards the platform.

"C'mon, we gotta get these boys cut down!" He said, tossing me the machete, and pulling out his own bowie knife. I could hear bells start to ring all around, and indistinct voices shouting orders. Even worse, I heard the sounds of dogs barking, and getting closer.

I got a close look at the nearest crucified soldier, and breathed a sigh of relief: they hadn't been nailed to these crosses. There were only a few pieces of rope around each wrist and their feet. A few quick hacks with the machete, and the nearest NCR trooper was free. The soldier I'd helped down - a black man who looked barely out of his teens - latched onto me.

"Are... are you for real?" he asked. He shook visibly as he spoke. I nodded, and turned to my friends. Between the four of us, we were able to get all three of them down. I could see the Legion troops starting to rush towards us from all sides. Boone had started firing the moment the last soldier had been freed, and already the mob was thinning out considerably.

"We gotta get out of here," I said, helping the trooper back onto his feet. He didn't fall over, so that was a good sign. "Cass, Veronica - lead these guys back up the ridge to the checkpoint. Boone and I will draw their fire and cover your escape." The two of them nodded, leading the soldiers back the way we came. Boone reloaded his rifle. I knelt down, took aim with Roscoe, and let VATS work its magic as the two of us started firing into the advancing Legion troops. ED-E zoomed down from the sky and started firing his laser at them as well.

These Legion soldiers were dressed in salvaged sports equipment and leathers, and most of them coming at us were armed with little more than machetes. Boone and I (mostly Boone, I admit) had already killed a total of eight Legionaries and three dogs. If we were fighting raiders, like Vipers, Jackals, or even Khans, and that many of their number had been killed by two men, the rest of them would've scattered. The remaining Legion soldiers paid no attention to casualties, and rushed at us with a seemingly suicidal overconfidence.

The sight was unsettling, I admit. But it didn't really help them against a First Recon sniper with unnatural accuracy, a flying robot with a military grade laser, and a pissed off courier with a 9mm and VATS.

Boone fired one last time, and the last Legion trooper fell. Nelson was silent for a minute or two. I looked around and mentally took stock: all together, we'd killed sixteen Legion troops and six dogs. The smell of death hung in the air.

"Let's get out of here before more Legion troops arrive," I said to Boone. He nodded, and turned to leave, but stopped, and turned back to me.

"Mercy killing is a last resort. Glad you recognized we had options."

* * *

"I have to admit, I didn't think you could do it," Milo said as Boone and I returned to the NCR checkpoint. The three soldiers we'd helped off the crosses were sitting on the back of the deuce-and-a-half, getting looked after by a medic. "Guess that makes me the sap and you the hero."

"If you want to thank anyone, thank Boone. He did most of the killing," I shrugged.

"Still... thanks," He shook my hand, and I walked away, back towards my car. I didn't know where Veronica or Cass had run off to, but Boone was sitting on the hood of my Corvega, cleaning his rifle. He looked deep in thought, like he wasn't even really paying attention to what he was doing.

"Hey. You doin' alright?" I asked.

"Mercy killing is expected of NCR snipers," he said, not even looking up from his task. "The Legion likes to torture their prisoners within sight of NCR positions. We get called on to end it. I've had my share..." He sighed, and stopped cleaning his rifle. "Some of them, you think, maybe you could've gotten them out," He finally looked up at me. "Maybe it's not the Legion that got them killed. Maybe it's your orders and you following them."

There was something in the inflection of his words... something in the way he spoke about mercy killing that made me wonder, and start to put pieces together in my head. So I took a gamble.

"Boone," I sat down next to him on the hood of my car. "I think it's time you told me what really happened to your wife."

"I don't see what that helps," He growled. "She's dead."

"I just... I feel like it's important. And the better we understand each other, the more effective we'll be."

He let out a sigh heavy enough to be made of lead. He swallowed hard, and began to nod slowly.

"All right... here it is. She... I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river. They were selling her. Saw it through my scope. Whole place swarming with Legion. Not like here - there were hundreds of them. Bidding for things no man has a right to. I just had my rifle with me. Just me, against all of them, so..." His voice started to waver, and he locked his jaw up to compose himself. He looked away from me when he spoke next.

"I took the shot."

The two of us sat in silence for a minute or two. I shook my head - I'd been expecting something like that, to be honest, but it was still awful. I tried to think of something to say, to be a good friend. Or at least a decent human being.

"You did the right thing," I said finally. "It's a horrible situation, but it's better to die than live as a slave."

"Yeah," his voice was gruff - more than usual. "What they do to women... that's worse than death. There was no choice in what I did. No decision. It was more like... being forced to watch something you can't stop. I was meant to pull that trigger. It was a mistake to think I could escape it. You take out a debt, it's only a matter of time before someone comes collecting. Things just finally caught up with me."

That was surprisingly more philosophical than I was expecting from Boone. I furrowed my brow and looked at him questioningly.

"You make it sound like your wife's death was inevitable."

"It was gonna be something. If I'd never met Carla, it would've been something else. I should've never gotten close to her," He turned to me, and I finally caught a glimpse of his eyes from behind his sunglasses... and it was like he wasn't really seeing me. It was like he was seeing beyond. They were tired, and cold, and empty - the eyes of a man who had seen way too much way too often. "I've got bad things coming to me. You'd better keep your distance, too."

"That's the second time you've told me you have bad things coming to you," I said, remembering his words from the other night. "Why?" He looked away and back towards the horizon.

"Because fair is fair."

"What, you're not going to tell me?"

"No. Sorry."


	19. Chapter 18: The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter 18: The Calm Before the Storm

* * *

_Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is Mr. New Vegas. Time for some news. I've just received a report that the NCR flag has been hoisted over former Legion outpost Nelson after several days of heavy fighting. Unconfirmed reports indicate, however, that the bulk of the Legion occupying force was wiped out by a small group of heavily armed civilians, but the commander of Camp Forlorn Hope is denying that claim. Either way, NCR officials are calling this a big win for troop morale. Today's headlines were brought to you by the Tumbleweed Club: Rest your spurs and relax in Freeside. And now, I'd like to play one of my very favorite songs for you: it's Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash._

* * *

"I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you in here this morning," I said with my arms folded behind me, walking into the kitchen. Cass, Boone, Veronica, and Arcade were all sitting around the table, and they all looked up from their food when I spoke up.

"Uhh..." Cass still had a spoon hanging out of her mouth. "Not really. S'breakfast, an' we're all hungry."

"Either way," I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. "I think it's time I told you all about the job."

"The job?" Arcade asked.

"Yes. The job. The big one. The one House has hired me - and by extension, all of you - to carry out. Remember?" I said. Arcade just shrugged.

"I guess today's as good a day as any," Arcade went back to eating his omelet. "I mean, it's Monday, isn't it?" Cass chuckled to herself.

"You are in the house of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning. On October the 24th, if you want to know," Cass said aloud, with surprising clarity and lack of slurred speech. She looked up from her bowl of sugar bombs and was greeted by a table of blank stares... well, blank stares from everyone except Arcade.

"Who the hell is Elrond?" I asked, seriously confused. Veronica shrugged.

"Don't look at me, I don't know what she's talking about."

"Nev'rmind..." Cass grumbled and went back to her cereal.

"And here I thought I was the only one who read those books," Arcade nodded at her with a smile. I just shook my head, and pulled the Platinum Chip out of my pants pocket.

"Look, we're getting off topic," I set the chip on the table with an audible thunk, just to make sure everyone was paying attention. "Here's the deal: House has hired me to take this chip to a bunker at Fortification Hill. And we need to put our heads together and figure out the best way to approach this."

"Hang on," Arcade put a hand up, and looked at me over his glasses. "Fortification Hill? This is the same Fortification Hill where Caesar has set up shop, correct?"

"Yes. Yes it is," I said, nodding.

"Well, this certainly explains why you didn't want to tell us right away," Veronica took a sip of Nuka Cola after she spoke.

"Forgive me," Arcade pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "But I don't really wish to play the Virgil to your Dante."

"It's not like the plan is to head up there for tea with Caesar, Arcade," I said with a scowl. "The last thing House wants is for the Legion to take the dam and conquer the Mojave."

I remembered my chat with House from a few nights ago: _"If the Legion defeats the NCR at Hoover Dam, or if General Oliver's 'Tunnel Vision' strategy, by some miracle, manages to defeat the Legion... let's just say that both scenarios would be bad for business, Mr. Fisher. I can't let either the NCR or the Legion win on their terms..."_

"I thought the whole reason you were talking with us was because you didn't have a plan." Veronica said, resting her chin on her hands.

"Not... as such, no," I admitted. "But then, a complete and utter lack of a plan didn't really stop me from killing Benny, did it?" I smirked, trying to play it off like I really did know what I was doing. Veronica thought a minute, and seemed to concede the point with a shrug. Arcade, on the other hand...

"You know, I wasn't there, so I only know about what happened at the Tops from what you told me. But I can tell you now, dealing with Benny and the Chairmen is going to be a cakewalk compared to Caesar's Fort, if even half the stories I've heard about the Legion are true. But more to the point - how are we going to get there? As far as I know, the only way into Caesar's Fort is by crossing Hoover Dam, and the NCR has the mother of all blockades built to prevent anyone from going in or coming out of the Arizona side."

"I admit, that's a bit of a problem. I haven't quite worked out how we can even _get_ to the Fort, much less get inside..." I stroked my chin - force of habit from when I had a much fuller beard. Stroking your chin in thought doesn't really have the same feel when it's only stubble.

"I know how we can get there." It was the first time Boone had spoken up today, and everyone turned to look at him. His face remained impassive behind his sunglasses.

"Cottonwood Cove."

I checked the map on my Pip Boy. Cottonwood Cove was a small port, about 13 and a half miles east of Searchlight, and quite a ways south of Hoover Dam... and the only way to get to the Arizona side without crossing the dam itself was by boat, traveling who knows how many miles upriver. Looking at it, it made sense. If the NCR had been fortifying the coast, but didn't have the manpower to completely cover everywhere, then Cottonwood Cove would be the perfect Legion staging area: easy access to both coasts by river, but far enough out of the way as to not be noticed.

"Are you sure?" I asked. Boone simply nodded.

"I'm sure. If you can get me to Cottonwood Cove, I can get us to The Fort."

* * *

After breakfast, nearly everyone left to run errands around Freeside and The Strip. I couldn't really blame them. I promised Boone that we'd all head to Cottonwood Cove tonight to scout it out - and if the opportunity presented itself, sneak into the Fort. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra firepower (and possibly some actual armor) just in case things went sideways. Which is why I was leaving for an errand of my own.

I was in the elevator and Veronica jumped in just as the doors were about to close, throwing herself against the back wall with a dull thud of metal against metal.

"You know, if you'd asked I would've held the door open for you. There is a button for that." She just shrugged.

"Well, I'm quick enough, so you didn't need to. You're heading to the Gun Runners, right?" I nodded. "Mind if I tag along?"

"Sure," I pressed the button to take us to the casino floor. "Maybe you can tell me about the Brotherhood on the way there."

"Yeah, well, it pays like ass, but it's hard to get other work with my skill set," she smirked as the elevator descended. "What do you want to know?"

"I suppose the first thing I'm curious about - have you told Arcade yet?"

"Ah-heh..." She looked sheepish. "Not... yet."

"You know you're going to have to tell him eventually."

"I know, I know, it's just that..." Veronica shrugged. "Well, to be honest, I wouldn't have told anybody yet if you hadn't figured it out the other night. Hell, Boone hasn't said a single word to me since The Tops."

"Boone hardly speaks to anyone," I tried to reassure her. "What does that have to do with anything?" The elevator doors opened, and the two of us walked towards the front door of the Lucky 38.

"He's NCR, through and through. A blind man could see it in a minute. It's why he still wears that beret - he isn't in the army anymore, but he's a believer. He believes in the cause, and in the will of the NCR to control the wasteland." The two of us walked around the Lucky 38 to the underground garage, towards where my Corvega was parked.

"I ask again," I said. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"The NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel have been at war for decades," she stated simply. "Do you remember how I said my parents were killed? They died in a battle against the NCR years ago. I don't remember what they were killed trying to defend... I guess it seemed important at the time..." she trailed off for a moment, but shook it away and continued. "The point is, Boone is NCR to the core. And to the NCR, the Brotherhood is an enemy."

"Do you think he's going to cause problems because you're Brotherhood and he's NCR?" I asked.

"Look, I just want to make sure there won't be any trouble from Arcade if... when I tell him," she sighed. "To be frank, I'm not all that worried about Boone. He's more focused on fighting Legion than worrying about me, I think. I'm more worried that the NCR is going to be the death of the Brotherhood. They take what they want. We defend our interests to the death. But there's a handful of us, and tens or hundreds of thousands of them. So it's not going to end well."

"Nothing ever ends well in the wasteland," I mused, thinking about Boone's words from yesterday. Veronica continued.

"Last time the Brotherhood and NCR clashed, we lost a lot of people and retreated to the bunker. Now, we're afraid to even move around during the day."

"So," I said as the two of us finally reached my car. "The rest of the Brotherhood in the Mojave is hiding out underground. But you still haven't told me: what exactly does the Brotherhood do, anyway? I'm still not really all that clear on that point. I mean, hell, you're the first member I think I've ever met."

"Heh," she chuckled, sliding into the passenger seat. "That's a good question. To be honest... these days, it's hard to say. Once upon a time, it was about... protecting people, I guess."

"Protecting people? What, like from raiders and slavers? Feral ghouls and insane mutants? Things like that?"

"Oh no," she waved it off and smiled at me. "We don't do that. I'm talking about protecting people from themselves, and only in the sense that we don't let them have any of the good Pre-War toys. The idea is controlling technology, so that it doesn't get the chance to destroy us again. Energy weapons and powered armor are usually on the top of our list, although I appreciate anything that's vintage. But all that seems... I don't know, it just seems so limited now."

"Not really the word I would use," I said. "Pointless is more how I'd describe that mission. Even if you had the numbers of the NCR military, you wouldn't be able to confiscate every piece of Pre-War tech out there in the wastes."

"Maybe... maybe that's true. But it seems limited to me, because we haven't grown or adapted. The Brotherhood is stuck in a hole, and it seems like all we're doing is protecting ourselves, hoping to outlive everyone else in the outside world and become humanity's sole heirs."

"It sounds to me like you're pretty disillusioned with the whole business," I offered. She just sighed and shook her head.

"Yeah, I know I'm whining and complaining and moaning. Trust me, I know what I sound like. But there's still something that rings true to me about our code. There's a sort of... honor to it. I mean, we really do want to protect people. Even if it's from themselves, it's a good cause. It's just..." she hesitated, seemingly searching for the right words.

"The Brotherhood gets so focused on details that they lose sight of the big picture," I finished the thought for her, and she nodded in agreement.

"We treat all our practices with the same sacredness. Every member, from scribe to knight to paladin to elder, we all follow The Word, as written in the Codex. Deviation is not tolerated."

"The Codex?" I arched an eyebrow at her.

"The Codex is... well, think of it as The Big Book of the Brotherhood."

"Try and say that three times fast," I said with a soft laugh.

"Well, quite. If it's in there, we have to abide it. If it's not... well, then it's not important. Aside from documenting the laws and regulations we live by, it also documents our history. Before I was made a procurement specialist, I was a scribe, and part of a scribe's duty is to update it occasionally." Veronica tapped her chin. "Hmm... I wonder..."

"Sounds to me like you're plotting something," I smirked. She just smiled and shook her head.

"Nah," she said, more to herself than to me. "They'd probably catch it if I rewrote the Founder's Axioms."

* * *

The Gun Runners are one of those rare success stories that you almost never hear about in the wasteland. The way I always heard it told, they got their start in the Boneyard sometime in the 2160's as a small-time weapons dealer, operating out of a single site. Fast forward a few decades, and everyone from Dayglow to Klamath knows about the Gun Runners: the premier source of high quality arms and ammunition anywhere in the wasteland.

And unlike most weapon suppliers out there, they don't salvage weapons - they _make_ them. They have franchises and factories practically everywhere, and they're so good at what they do, the NCR has contracted with them to supply their army with guns, bullets, explosives, body armor... if it's used by NCR infantry, it was probably made by the Gun Runners .

In the Mojave, the Gun Runners operate out of a factory outside the Vegas wall, less than a mile south of Freeside's east gate. I noticed it when I first came to Vegas, and spent an hour driving around the wall trying to find the entrance. The building was essentially a kiosk, connected to a small, two story factory behind it. I couldn't really get a decent look at the factory itself. It was surrounded by a chain link fence, with another wall behind that. The sign above the kiosk, proclaiming this building in large welded steel letters that you were, indeed, at the "GUN RUNNERS" was lit up from below with two tiny spotlights.

"I think that's the first sign in Vegas I've seen without neon," Veronica said after I parked the Corvega nearby.

"I think you're right," I agreed, walking up to the kiosk. It was essentially just a wooden box and was manned by a Protectron-model robot behind a sheet of thick glass. Beneath the glass window was a metal slot, which looked large enough to accommodate sniper rifles or suits of combat armor. Next to the window was a computer terminal. Knowing the Gun Runners, the inside of the box was probably lined with steel and Kevlar, and the glass had been bulletproofed. Behind the robot was some manner of conveyor belt, with several weapons attached to it.

**"WELCOME SIR OR MADAM."** The robot spoke in loud mechanical voice, free of inflection or emotion. **"DO YOU WISH TO PURCHASE SOMETHING?"**

"I'm not sure yet," I said, trying to get a good look at some of the weapons on the conveyor belt. One of them was a rifle almost four feet long. Judging from the size and shape of the barrel, it looked chambered for .50 MG rounds... A gun like that could probably blow a deathclaw in half, if you hit it in the right spot. I considered it for half a minute, and then realized something like that would be absurdly expensive.

"Hey, Veronica? What do you want?" There was a part of my brain that seemed to realize the absurdity of asking her what kind of weapon she wanted, the same way I'd ask someone if they wanted something from a corner store in Shady Sands.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What's up?"

"I asked you what you wanted." I repeated.

"What do I want?" She looked confused.

"I'm not gonna say it a third time." I turned back to looking at the weapons on display as she thought. Finally, she spoke up.

"I want... a dress."

What.

"Run that by me again?" I turned away from the robot, and couldn't help but stare. I'll be honest, that caught me a little by surprise.

"I want a dress!" She said with considerably more enthusiasm the second time. "A good one. Something elegant and classy, but still stylish. Something that's eye-catching and sexy, but also says 'don't fuck with me,' you know?"

I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. The reason it probably caught me by surprise was that I didn't really think of Veronica as a girl. I suppose I kept forgetting she was one. How, I'm not sure. But still. She wasn't quite finished speaking yet.

"I keep hoping that I'll find something - you know, some Old World designer gown - when I'm scavenging, but it never happens. Some days, I think I should move back to California."

"You know, as interesting as that is," I finally said when I found my voice "I was actually wondering if you wanted anything from here." I jabbed a thumb at the robot inside the shack. "I could be wrong, but I don't think they sell dresses here." I paused half a second, then turned to the robot.

"Do you sell dresses here?" Robots had been surprising me left and right the last few days. So what the hell, right?

**"I AM UNABLE TO PROCESS YOUR REQUEST."** It bleated. I turned back to Veronica, who was blushing so fiercely, I was surprised her robe wasn't catching on fire.

"Sorry, no dice," I smiled smugly.

"Alright, fine!" She practically shouted, her face flush with embarrassment. She crossed her arms over her chest, looked away from me, and scowled. "I didn't understand what you meant. Jerkface."

"Hey, don't take it so seriously, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just having a little fun with you, that's all," I turned back to the robot. "Do you have any melee weapons? Mods for a power fist? Things like that?"

**"I AM READY TO PROCESS YOUR TRANSACTION,"** It pointed a claw-hand in the direction of the computer terminal. **"PLEASE, USE THE TERMINAL TO SELECT THE ITEMS YOU WISH TO PREVIEW."**

"Oooh!" Veronica had suddenly appeared next to me, looking into the kiosk through the window as the weapons trundled along on the conveyor belt. "Is that a two-step goodbye? I think it is!" She was pointing at something that looked like it could've been a power fist, but instead of a metal plate on pneumatic pistons, there was a pair of what looked like shotgun barrels mounted to the top.

"So..." I cycled through the selections on the terminal, watching as the guns passed by. "A dress, huh?"

"I thought you were done teasing me about that!" I heard her say indignantly.

"I'm not teasing," I said honestly. "I'm actually legitimately curious now. Why a dress?"

"Hey, you try getting a date wearing Brotherhood Scribe robes! Might as well be wearing sweatpants," I just shook my head and smiled as she continued. "I just like 'em, you know? A nice dress... it makes you feel like a woman, you know?"

"No, I don't actually know that feeling. My equipment in the trouser department is rather different."

"Wise-ass."

"I'll be honest, I didn't peg you for liking something like that."

"And why not?" She took on a playfully insulted air.

"Well..." I tried to think of how I could phrase this diplomatically. "Because most of the lesbians that I've met over the years... usually, if they're into mechanical things like guns and power fists and taking engines apart, and other kinds of hands-on engineering, they aren't really into things like dresses, or makeup, or pastel ponies, or any other kinds of traditionally 'girly' endeavors."

"Hey now, just because I crack skulls and turn heads into red paste during my day job doesn't mean that I don't like to feel sexy every once in a while!"

I nodded, conceding that she had a fair point.

"Oh, neat!" She pressed her nose against the glass again. "A hydraulically-actuated super sledge!"

* * *

**Authors Note: Well, folks, that's it. When I started posting this story, I'd given myself what I thought was a huge buffer, but now my posted chapters have caught up with what I've written. So, unless I become incredibly inspired and write 10 chapters in the next day or so, I won't be able to post chapters every Friday. I'll post them whenever they get done... whenever that might be. So if you've been looking forward to this every Friday, I apologize.**


	20. Chapter 19: Cottonwood Cove

Chapter 19: Cottonwood Cove

* * *

_Welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas show. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas. Got some Dean Martin coming up later in the program, followed by good ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. But first, I have some news. Violence outside the Vegas wall has increased in recent days, despite the best attempts by NCR troops stationed at Camp McCarran to find and eliminate the leaders of the Fiends. Fighting was especially brutal in the ruins where the Las Vegas beltway meets the Long 15. Locals and tourists are advised to steer clear. More classics coming at you on the airwaves, so stay tuned._

* * *

"Stop the car."

It was the first thing Boone had said since we'd set out for Cottonwood Cove about an hour earlier. For some reason, the ride had seemed longer. Boone had claimed shotgun before anyone else had reached the car, and had been scanning the landscape the entire trip; Veronica, Arcade, and Cass were all sitting in the back. It probably sounds cramped, but the great thing about old world cars like my Corvega is how surprisingly spacious they are - the backseat was like a wide, rather comfortable sofa.

Well... as comfortable as I could make it, anyway.

"Boone?" I inquired. It was all I could think to ask, really.

"Stop the car," Boone repeated. "If we get much closer, Legion perimeter scouts are bound to hear the engine."

I nodded, and pulled the car off to the side of the road, killing the engine next to a patch of honey mesquite trees.

"As lovely as this trip has been," I heard Arcade mutter in the back, his words laced with sarcasm, "I'm glad we're stopping. I really do feel the need to stretch my legs."

"What, had too much of our girl talk already?" I didn't need to see Veronica to know she was smirking. I'd heard the conversation coming from the backseat; on the one side was Cass, explaining the finer points of distilling moonshine to an Arcade who couldn't care less, and on the other was Veronica, recounting a story where she'd punched a raider in the face so hard, his skull went right through his body, and _literally_ shot out of his ass. She was getting really vivid and graphic with her story, too, and it made me wonder: just how much of the gore did she really remember, and how much was she just making up on the spot? Though, I did have to admit 'cascading rivulets of crimson slashing through the air and glistening in the evening sun' had a certain morbid charm to it.

And to think: Veronica was the one who wanted the dress.

"If I wanted girl talk, I'd just start talking to myself," Arcade retorted. Veronica just laughed.

"C'mon," Boone checked his rifle, making sure it was loaded. "We're about half a klick Southwest of where we need to be."

Just as ED-E flew down to join the rest of us, I thought about those directions Boone had just described - that couldn't be right. I checked my Pip Boy's map. Sure enough...

"Hang on - we need to get to Cottonwood Cove, and that would take us... not quite the wrong direction, but not close enough to the cove."

"I know. We can't go straight there," he said, starting to walk away. "Follow me."

"Well, alright, but hang on a minute," I said, moving to the front of my car. "I gotta get something first." I unlocked it, lifted the trunk lid, and started rooting around, sifting through the very large pile of stuff I kept in there.

"Th' hell?" Cass looked over my shoulder into the pile of crap in my trunk. "I thought that was where th' engine was."

After some shifting of general clutter, I found the two things I was looking for. The first was the rifle I'd picked up from the Gun Runners earlier - they called it Pinpoint. Instead of wood, the stock was made out of carbon fiber and plastics, the bolt and receiver were custom tooled, the end of the barrel had been fitted with a muzzle suppressor, and there was a long range optic scope mounted to the top. All in all, it was a handy piece of kit. Expensive as hell, but it should be worth it.

"Hey Cass? Think you can give me a hand with this?" I said, handing a corner of the second thing I'd found in the trunk to Cass.

"What is it?" She looked at the mesh in her hands, turning it over and staring at it intently as she helped me get it unfolded.

"Camo netting," I said, unfurling the grey-brown mesh netting, and urging her to help me drape it over my car. "It's a kind of old world camouflage equipment. It won't really work up close, but from a distance most people won't give it a second glance."

"Not unless they know what to look for," Veronica chimed in, surveying our work.

"Well yeah, but there aren't any other rusted cars around," I shrugged. With any luck, if anyone looked in the direction of my car, they'd just think it was a big rock or a clump of dead plants. "If there were, I'd hide it in the middle of them rather than bother with the netting."

"I think we might need to hurry," Arcade said, looking off towards Boone. "He's leaving without us."

* * *

"Boone, where are we even going?" I asked as we made our way over the broken ground. The group of us had been following him on a very precarious and winding route along a ridge. I still couldn't see the Colorado River.

"Sniper nest," he said, suddenly sliding down from his spot and down the ridge. ED-E buzzed by my head and followed. With a shrug, I followed suit, grabbing hold of the steeply angled ground to slow my decent. After only a few seconds of sliding, I found myself on a strangely level part of the ridge, which had somehow remained hidden from view on the approach. There was a small shack, which looked hastily constructed out of wood and corrugated metal, a small circle of stones and some ash, a few discarded tin cans, and countless discarded cigarette butts. At the edge of the cliff (and it was steep enough to be a cliff at this point) was a small awning made out of the same sort of camo netting I used on my car.

"I need you to give me a hand with something," I heard Boone say as the rest of my companions followed me down. I turned to him, only to see him with a shovel in hand - where had he gotten a shovel? - and handed me one as well. Handed is perhaps the wrong word, though. He practically tossed it at me.

"Alright, sure," I shrugged. "What are we digging up?"

"Just some things I left, last time I was here" he said, walking with a distinct purpose to a patch of ground that didn't look any different than any other patch of ground nearby. He planted his shovel and started to dig.

"You can be infuriatingly cryptic at times, you know that, right?" He just grunted a "Hmm," as the two of us shoveled the dirt and rocks away. Eventually, I hit something hard, but not hard like a rock: hard like metal. The two of us working eventually cleared away the dirt enough for us see a long, rectangular metal box. When it was clear enough, we discarded the shovels and cleared the remaining dirt away with our hands. He grabbed one end, and I grabbed the other, pulling it out of the hole and setting it on firmer ground.

"So, what is this?" I asked. The others had started to gather around us, to see what we were doing. Boone didn't reply, and instead set his rifle on the ground before turning his attention to the lock. The box didn't use a key; it was a combination lock, like I'd seen on some briefcases in the past. He thumbed in the numbers, pushed a button, and the box opened with a hiss of displaced air.

The inside of the box was divided in half by a metal partition. One half contained some kind of chest armor, with the pieces arranged very neatly in the most space-efficient manner possible, and displaying a desert camouflage pattern. Underneath the armor was what looked like some kind of dirty brownish-green leather duster. Sitting on top of the armor was a combination helmet and gas mask, with dark green tinted eye lenses, some kind of small camera or light mounted on the right side of the helmet, and "FORGIVE ME MAMA" written in black ink on the front of the helmet. On the other side of the box's partition was a rifle, very much in a state of disassembly, but unmistakably a DKS-501 sniper rifle that had been given the same kind of desert camo paint job as the armor.

While Boone busied himself with assembling the sniper rifle, I grabbed the helmet, and turned it over in my hands to get a better look at it. There were several tally marks on the sides, and on the back were two columns of words scrawled in the same black paint. The left column was headed by "NANJING" with "JUN" "JUL" "AUG" and "SE" below it. "SE" had a line crossed through it. The right column was topped by the word "SHANGHAI" with "SEP" "OCT" "NOV" "DEC" "JAN" "FEB" "MAR" "APL" and "MAY" written below it.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed the top of the helmet, and pushed it back down into the metal box.

"Please, don't touch my things," Boone said, grabbing the last piece of the sniper rifle and fitting it in place.

"Where the hell did you get all this?" I asked. Boone didn't reply at first, and instead grabbed the chest armor. I only got a glance, but I could see writing on the collar, in a faded white ink:

SSGT VICKERS, RB

O POS - USMC

"I bought it," he finally said, sliding the various pieces of armor on, and locking them in place.

"Bullshit," I heard Cass say from behind me. Both Boone and I turned to look at her, but Boone continued to armor up as she kept talking. "I've seen that kind've armor b'fore. That's NCR Ranger armor. Y'can't just buy somethin' like that."

"It's not Black Armor," Boone said simply. As he spoke, he took off his sunglasses and his beret, and very carefully, almost reverently, put them in the metal box. "This is a set of pre-war US Marine armor from the invasion of China. Got it from a merchant who'd just passed through Utah. It cost a fortune." Boone grabbed the helmet and put it on, securing it to his head with a well practiced speed. He tapped the camera on the side of his helmet, and I heard it emit a high pitched mechanical whine. The lenses seemed to light up of their own volition. Finally, he grabbed the leather duster, and shut the box with his foot as he put it on.

When he stood up, he cut a rather imposing sight. I'll give him that much. The breeze caught his coat, and it fluttered... rather dramatically, it must be said. He turned his helmeted head, and looked at us from behind a single green lens.

"You wanted to find out how to get into the Fort," when Boone spoke, his words were slightly muffled by the gas mask, and carried an odd reverberating quality. "Here's how."

With that, he walked to the edge of the cliff and shouldered his rifle, waiting on the rest of us. Peering over the edge, I finally could see Cottonwood Cove. The road wound through almost nearly to the edge of the river. A series of buildings and several tents dotted the area, and I could see several small docks and a few boats sitting at the edge of the river. I tried to follow the path of the road back to where I'd left my car, but I stopped when I saw the telephone poles. There must have been dozens of them - maybe even a hundred - all lining the road towards the cove. I was suddenly thankful we were so high up and far away that I couldn't make out any detail.

"There should only be a handful of legionaries stationed here. About the same as Nelson, probably. I can hit them from here, but if there was another marksman firing from the Cottonwood Overlook-" Boone pointed to a small ridge on the south side of the cove, that had a few smaller buildings and what looked like the trailer of a big rig hanging off the edge "- that should cover where the fire is coming from. Cause enough confusion, that should draw out the leader of the camp. Once he's dealt with, the mop up should be easy."

"Excuse me for asking this," Arcade spoke up; Boone and I turned from the ridge to look. "But how is a shootout going to help? I thought this was about getting into the fort."

"Yeah," I scratched the back of my head. "I was just about to ask that myself. Not that I'm against killing legionaries, but this sounds more like a 'kill-em-all' plan. It's hardly subtle. And it still doesn't really answer how to get to the fort itself."

Boone stared at me from behind the green lenses on his helmet. Even so, I'd be willing to put money on the notion that his face behind the mask would be just as stony and expressionless. He turned back to the ridge, and pointed at the docks.

"The Legion use boats to transport men, equipment, and slaves from here to the fort. Most are rafts, but I've seen at least one with a working outboard," He turned back to Arcade. "That's our way inside: steal a boat."

"Ok, that's fine... but why risk ourselves with a big fight? Why can't we just sneak in and steal it?" Arcade asked

"Dead men can't squawk," was Boone's reply.

"So what's t'stop 'em from warnin' th' fort while we're killin' em?" Cass was kneeling by the ridge, taking a look for herself at what we were going to be up against.

"They only use radios to spy on the NCR, not to communicate," Boone said to her simply. "Caesar hates technology."

"You know, I gotta say... This plan seems reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, and needlessly violent," All of us turned to look at Veronica when she paused. She just smiled, and continued. "I'm game."

"It's a solid 'nuff plan I s'pose," Cass spoke up, still looking down towards the cove. "An' after seein' what they did at Nipton 'n Nelson, I got no problem takin' a crack at these bastards. So who's gonna be th' other shooter?"

"Catch," Boone's voice startled even me, because of where it came from: without being seen by anyone he'd gone to where he'd set down his rifle, and didn't toss so much as shove it towards Cass. She was as startled as I was, I think, but she caught it with both hands. He continued speaking after giving her his old gun, his voice still filtered by the gas mask. "It's suppressed. That'll help keep them from spotting you, since you'll be firing from a position more exposed than mine."

"Alright..." Cass said hesitantly, eyeing the gun with suspicion. "But... why me?"

"You're the best shot here. Apart from Sheason and myself," Boone replied.

"So, why don't I shoot from the ridge?" I asked. Honestly, I trusted Boone's judgment, but sometimes I wished he'd be a bit less unfathomable. Or, at the very least, more forthcoming with information.

"Because your part in this plan is more dangerous. And more crucial. While the two of us are picking them off, you drive up the middle. Mop up the stragglers," He sniffed inside his helmet. "You're the one who wants to go to the fort anyway."

"Fair enough..." I'll be honest - I'd be much more comfortable somewhere I could put Pinpoint to more use, far away from the Legion line of fire. But I was going to have to go down there one way or another. Probably best to have Boone and Cass cover me with death from above. Besides... it's not like I would've asked anyone else to act as bait. I'm not that kind of asshole.

"ED-E," I called for the robot, and immediately he hovered in front of my face with a beep. "I want you flying high enough above me on the way down so these two can see you. When I get close enough, fly down and cause some chaos," He beeped again in agreement, while I turned to Boone and Cass. "I want you both watching him. When ED-E joins the fight, that'll be the signal to open up."

"Sounds good t'me," Cass said, resting Boone's rifle against her shoulder. Boone merely nodded.

"Alright, before we go any further, I want to get back to the Corvega. There are a few more things I want to pick up," Everyone nodded, and (with the exception of Boone) all started walking back up the way we came. I started following, but right before I left, I happened to look back over my shoulder.

Boone was standing at the edge of the cliff with his sniper rifle in hand. He stood there, stock-still, like a statue of the old world chiseled from granite or marble or something. At first I was confused - why was he just standing there? And why was he staring down at the cove? And then I remembered his words from yesterday: _"I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river."_ Quietly, I made my way back towards Boone, until I was standing right behind him. He didn't move until I spoke.

"This is it, isn't it?" I asked, not daring to voice my suspicions any more than that. His head shifted slightly in my direction, but he didn't say anything. Silence permeated the air for several moments. It seemed like even the wind was scared to make noise around Boone. Eventually, he turned his head away from me, and went back to staring at the cove.

"Does it matter?" was his response when he finally spoke up. Somehow, his voice was more gravelly than normal, and it wasn't just the filter of the gas mask. His voice was cold... devoid of emotion... it almost sounded inhuman.

The voice of someone already dead.

"I... I guess not," I said, shaking my head sadly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"We already had this conversation once," he said, sharply. "I'm not interested in having it again."

"I suppose so," I sighed, slowly walking away, and towards the path back to my car. Before I got completely out of earshot, however, I heard Boone say one last thing to me.

"Sheason. When you get down there, don't hesitate. You hesitate fighting Legion, you're already dead."

* * *

"There y'are," Cass said when I finally caught up with them. Cass, Veronica, Arcade and ED-E were all hanging around my car. "What'd ya do, take th' scenic route?"

"Something like that," I shrugged. I pointed to the rifle in Cass' hands. "What kind of ammo do you think that takes?"

"Uh..." She took a look at the rifle in her hands questioningly, and ejected the magazine. "308, I think."

"Alright, gimmie a sec," and with that, I pulled the camo netting off the front of my car and popped the trunk, rummaging around inside it for a minute or two before pulling out two boxes of .308 rifle ammunition. "Here ya go, extra ammo."

"What th' hell, man? Just how much CRAP do you keep in there?" She asked with a laugh, taking the ammo off my hands.

"Enough," I said, still searching for the other things I was looking for. "Keep in mind, normal for me is living in my car. I'm still not quite used to House's gilded cage..." I looked up from the mass of stuff in the trunk, and turned back to Cass. "You should probably get going. This isn't going to work if we don't move fast. Veronica, go with her."

"Wait, what?"

"Cass'll be firing from an exposed point, like Boone said. If they figure out where the fire's coming from, she'll need someone to watch her back. Just in case." Even though I was talking to Veronica, my gaze didn't leave Cass. She cocked her head to the side, and looked curious for a moment... but then her expression changed to that of someone who was just insulted.

"Hey now, I can take care of m'yself. I don't need someone watchin' my back, like I'm a fuckin' child!"

"I'm not doubting that," I said reaching into the trunk and pulling out a super-sledge. "But a little help never hurt anyone." And with that, I handed the massive hydraulic sledgehammer to Veronica, whose face lit up like the New Vegas skyline.

"Did you get this at the Gun Runners? For me? Oh, I didn't know you cared!" While Veronica was gushing over her new toy, Cass merely sighed, and started walking away towards the overlook to the south.

"Fine, whatever. You comin' V?" She called back over her shoulder. Veronica nodded, despite the fact that Cass couldn't see her, and was about to follow when I set a hand on her shoulder. Veronica stopped, and just looked back at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Make sure you keep her safe," I said in a low voice, so only the two of us could hear. "Can you do that for me?" She just looked at me for half a second, looked at Cass, and then looked back at me with a face of dawning comprehension and a sly smile. She chuckled softly and nodded.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, Shea," she reached up and tousled my hair like you'd do to a six year old. This really annoyed me, given she's still practically a child and I'm at least a decade older than her. "Any Legion comes poking around, they'll get a face full of pain and death." And with that, she skipped off after Cass.

"She's an odd one," Arcade said, shaking his head. "So, I guess this means I'm tagging along with you to 'mop up' then. Oh joy." I just went back to searching through the trunk. He walked up beside me and peered in over my shoulder. I shoved a few books to the side, and he picked them up, reading the titles.

"Let's see... 'Big Book of Science,' 'Guns and Bullets,' 'Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual'... Cass was right to ask about one thing. Just how much crap do you have?"

"Just some light reading for the road. Aha!" I pulled out the cylinders I was looking for, and handed one to Arcade. "Here, hold this."

"And what exactly is this that I'm holding?" He turned it over in his hands just once. "It looks like a microfusion cell."

"You're half right," I said, securing three of them to my belt, and continuing my search for pistol ammunition. "I found the design a couple years ago. You need three cells to make one of those, and it takes a fair bit of rewiring, a sensor module, the firing pin from a frag grenade and some electrical tape, but it gets the job done."

"You turned microfusion cells into grenades," Arcade replied flatly, looking at me over his glasses with an expression between stunned shock and amazement.

"Call it a poor-man's plasma grenade," I said with a smirk. "Speaking of plasma, you need any ammo for that pistol of yours?"

"I'm sure I have enough ammo to last... oh, ten minutes? Fifteen?" Arcade shrugged. "I'll be honest, the current situation is far from ideal. Marching down into the gates of hell with only a pistol at my side against dozens of brutal and bloodthirsty Legion troops who would like nothing more than to nail me to a cross and use my nipples for target practice? This isn't really how I expected to spend today. Why exactly am I following you again? Oh, that's right, because you offered a resolute-and-yet-vague promise to fix things in Vegas. And somehow that brings us here. Ah well."

The whole time he'd been talking, I just stared at my Corvega. I wasn't really listening to him, because a plan was forming in my head. It was a crazy plan. A reckless plan. A horribly stupid, _painfully stupid_ plan, even. But Boone's plan was crazy, reckless, and stupid on its own. What harm could a little more do?

"Help me with the camo netting," I said, trying to pull it off my car.

"Sorry?" Despite looking confused, Arcade pulled himself out of it long enough to help me pull the mesh off my car and shove it back in the trunk.

"So, what do you say Virgil?" I smirked, shoving the trunk lid closed with a clang. "Think you'll let me be Dante for a while?"

"And so, I think it best you follow me for your own good," Arcade didn't reply, and instead spoke like he was quoting as the two of us got in my Corvega. "And I shall be your guide and lead you out through an eternal place where you will hear desperate cries, and see tormented shades, some old as Hell itself, and know what second death is, from their screams."

"So... was that a yes? Seriously, what the fuck was that supposed to be?" I asked. Arcade merely chuckled and pressed his glasses further up his nose, settling into the passenger seat.

"It's from the first chapter of the Divine Comedy. Virgil the Poet is offering to show Dante the Pilgrim the path through Hell," he said grimly. "I thought it rather apt, since we're marching to Caesar's doorstep."

"You know, I'll be honest... I never read it." I turned the key, and my Corvega rumbled into life with a roar.

"And we're not marching."

* * *

I'm sure the Legionaries using Cottonwood Cove as a staging ground were expecting a great many things to come down the highway into their camp. NCR scouts, giant mutated bugs, some raiders perhaps looking for easy prey... maybe a deathclaw, or an albino radscorpion. Those huge fuckers do tend to wander occasionally.

I'm pretty sure the last thing they expected was a 750 horsepower old world machine - spitting blue fire out the tailpipes - to come barreling down the highway towards their camp at full tilt.

I felt the car go light and the bottom come out from under me as we crested a hill. During the middle of the jump, it felt like my lungs were being forced into my lower intestines. Arcade was clutching the dashboard with one hand and his pistol in the other; I couldn't tell if he was pissed off or terrified.

"This is a stupid idea!" He yelled over the roar of the engine.

Pissed off it was then.

"Exactly!" I yelled right back, over the crash of the tires hitting the road again. "They won't be expecting this!"

There was one last corner on the road before the Legion camp, but a telephone pole cross with a skeleton still tied to it was sticking out of the ground - right at the apex of the curve. There was only one way I could make it around the corner without scrubbing off so much speed as to lose the element of surprise.

Before I go any further, I want to make something very clear about my car. It wasn't originally built to go fast - I made it fast when I put an enormous 3 megawatt fusion reactor behind the rear wheels. It was originally built in the late 2060's to be a luxury car, designed to go from point A to point B not as quickly as possible, but as soft and comfortably as possible with space inside for half a dozen suitcases. And because of that, it's very large - a little over 18 feet long, and six and a half feet wide. Mix that with the fact it weighs just over two and a half tons, and driving it around a corner at any kind of speed is kind of like trying to shove a very large building around a corner if the building was made of giant boulders. And cement. And churches.

"What the HELL are you DOING?!" Arcade was really yelling now. Honestly, I couldn't blame him - I'm sure from where he was sitting, it looked like the car was heading directly for the telephone pole. I had my foot planted on the floor, and the steering wheel turned as far into the corner as it could go. And it was at that precise moment when Arcade decided to start yelling in my ear, I felt the back end of the car let go. I took my foot off the gas, and the car started sliding sideways, and even over the roar of the engine, I could hear the screeching of the tires over the ruined and cracked pavement. Clouds of tire smoke poured in through the windows, and I strained against the wheel to get the nose of the car pointed back in the right direction. Just when I was afraid the car was going to spin out, the back tires found grip and I was back to speeding down the road straight instead of sideways.

"Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews! Not even Daisy Whitman's this crazy, you asshole!" I did my best to tune out Arcade yelling at me, and shifted the car back in gear as the camp came into view. Of course, distinctly separate from the camp and a damn sight closer was a Legion soldier standing right in the middle of the road. One uncomfortable bump in the road later, and he was no longer in front of us. In fact, he was behind us, crumpled in a bloody heap of red sports equipment. Not the cleanest way to go, it must be said, but at least he had the decency to get pushed under the car. The windshield has enough cracks in it as it is.

"Hold onto something!" I yelled, gunning the engine and aiming the car at a row of crimson tents near one of the collapsed buildings.

"That's not helpful!" Arcade yelled right back. Half an instant later, the only sounds I could hear were the sounds of metal rods hitting the car, one right after the other, and the windscreen was covered in red cloth. I just kept going, ignoring the hideously bumpy ride threatening to shake my spine loose until...

CRUNCH.

The Corvega came to a stop with a sudden and unexpected halt. Boone said don't hesitate, so I didn't; with one hand I flung the driver door open, and with the other I grabbed the shoulder of Arcade's labcoat.

"C'mon!" The two of us dove out of the car. The engine was still running, and I hadn't had time to take the car out of gear, but it wasn't moving. I didn't really have time to think about that though, because over the noise of the engine, I started hearing loud pings - the unmistakable sound of bullets ricocheting off the car. And then came the men shouting orders.

Well, at least I had some cover. That was a start. I pulled out Roscoe and peeked just enough over the car to see what was coming. VATS kicked in almost without thought now and started picking targets - 10 Legionaries were rushing at us with machetes, and six, maybe seven more scattered around with rifles. A few of the Legion soldiers carrying blades also had what looked like old world police riot shields, painted red with gold designs.

I took aim with Roscoe, and pointed at the nearest trooper. Two shots, and he was down. There were several sounds from next to me like a series of methane bubbles imploding in a swamp, and another nearby Legion soldier died from a burst of green plasma hitting him square in the chest. Nevermind the three plasma bolts that missed him. A bullet pinged perilously close to my head, and I ducked instinctively. That was when I heard what, at that moment in time, was the most glorious sound in the world: tinny, patriotic marching music belching from an Eyebot's speaker grille.

ED-E dropped out of the sky and flew directly over my head, letting loose laser blast after laser blast at the advancing Legionaries. One of the troopers with a shield was getting perilously close, and was flat out running towards the car. Arcade was reloading, and even though ED-E fired, the shot missed. I lined up Roscoe and was about to take the shot when I heard the second most glorious sound in the world.

There was a crack in the air like a thunderbolt, loosed by some angry, vengeful God. The Legionnaire lifted his riot shield away long enough for me to see the left side of his face explode in a shower of meat and bone. He spun, and the body hit the ground with a wet thud.

The fighting continued like that for several minutes. More Legion soldiers kept coming out of the woodwork, but thanks to my accuracy in VATS, Arcade's plasma pistol, ED-E's laser, and the sniping from Boone and Cass, they thinned out considerably. Eventually, I could hear no more shouts. The bullets had stopped pinging against my car. And there, off in the distance, about 50 yards away from my car, was the dock with the boat we were searching for. So, I decided to make a run for it.

"Hey," I patted Arcade on the shoulder as I got up and moved past him. "Cover me." I kept my pistol drawn as I made my way over to the docks, just in case there were any Legion troops smart enough to be hiding and waiting to ambush me. I got about halfway there when I came across something that made me stop in my tracks completely.

It was a cage. A roughly 20 feet by 20 feet cage made out of chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. It had been hidden behind several tents, which is why I hadn't seen it from my car. Thing is, I knew it was a cage, because there were _people_ inside. Two dozen people, easy. All shapes. All colors. All ages. All of them were wearing rags, and looked half starved... and beaten. When I got close, several of them grabbed at the fence, in the vain hope that they might be able to reach through the links. Most of them didn't get up - and looked too weak to get up. The most noticeable thing about them, however, was that each and every person was wearing a metal collar with a blinking red light.

I'm sure I would have tried to help them right then and there - in fact, I distinctly recall walking towards the cage, to see if I could find a gate - when I heard one of the girls hanging on the fence near me cry out in a weak voice:

"Behind you!"

I had just enough time to register a fist the size of a cooked ham before it connected with my face and I saw stars. Everything went sideways, and I felt myself roll across the ground. My grip on Roscoe loosened, and I heard it clatter on the rocks somewhere.

When my vision straightened out, I saw the biggest non-super mutant motherfucker I think I've ever have the misfortune to come across. Certainly, he was the biggest Legionnaire I've ever seen. His armor looked like a mish-mash of bits and pieces of fallen enemies. In the split second I had before I was forced to move, I saw a chest plate and a helmet from a super mutant (the only difference was the helmet had a red fringe on the top), the right pauldron and forearm from a suit of power armor, armor plates from the kind of NCR Ranger armor I'd seen Milo wearing yesterday, and the shin guards and boots from old world combat armor.

Before I could see anything else, I had to roll out of the way; a giant, hydraulically actuated sledgehammer was brought down on the ground with enough force to send splinters of rocks in every direction. I rolled again, and grabbed That Gun just as he brought the hammer down again. I tried to scramble to my feet, but instead of hitting me with the hammer, he kicked me in the gut with those steel toed combat boots. I tried not to lose my lunch, and ended up landing a good five feet away from him on my back. I leveled That Gun and fired at him, hoping - praying - that VATS would pull through. I was practically at point blank range anyway.

Of the five shots I fired, two were glancing shots in the arm and shoulder, and three hit him square in the chest. He didn't even seem phased. I pulled the trigger a sixth time, just because I was trying to fire as many shots as I could, but the click of the hammer hitting an empty chamber echoed in my ears. Obviously, he heard it too, because he just laughed.

I didn't wait. I couldn't wait. I tried to scramble to my feet, but I heard a loud thud, and felt a large hand grab my shoulder and flip me around. Another ham-sized fist hit me in the face, and I didn't have time to feel dizzy, because what I felt instead was a hand wrap around my throat and start to tighten. He lifted me up. My feet left the ground.

Instinctively, I started clawing at the hand on my throat. I could feel myself start to go lightheaded. My eyes felt like they were going to burst out of my head. My vision was starting to get blurry. I regained enough of my senses to stop clawing fruitlessly at his hand, and instead started punching him in the face. He didn't even flinch from the first punch... and the second punch he caught.

"Did you really think you could beat me, profligate?" He said with a snarl. "I, Aurelius of Phoenix, hand picked by the mighty Caesar himself to lea-"

I never got to hear the rest of that sentence, because he was cut short by a sound not unlike a bubble of methane imploding in a swamp. His expression went limp, and a trickle of blood escaped his mouth before his eyes rolled up in the back of his head. The two of us collapsed on the ground.

I probably would've been more grateful to Arcade for saving my sorry hide, but there was a bit of a problem. Despite being dead, this Aurelius of Phoenix had one hell of a grip.

"Help?" I managed to wheeze out, trying desperately to loosen the dead man's hand.

* * *

"Thanks for saving me," I said to Arcade as I put the car in neutral and turned off the engine. "I swear, that guy came out of nowhere!" Luckily, I hadn't crashed into anything, so my car was still in one piece, apart from the new bullet holes. But it's not like shooting a car a few times will make it explode in a massive fireball. No, all I'd done was drive it into a ditch. A latrine ditch, sadly (the smell was probably never going to come out) but at least I hadn't wrapped it around a telephone pole or crashed headlong into a big rock or something that would wreck it.

"Don't mention it," he said as the two of us pushed on the front of my Corvega to get it out of the ditch. "I'm just glad I finally got my eye in after that first one. It's been so long since I've been to the range, that I was out of practice."

"The range?"

"Yeah. You know, a firing range. Where you can practice target shooting without somebody shooting back, you know?" He grunted, and with one last combined shove the two of us were able to get the car clear of the ditch and back on open ground.

"No better way to practice than in a fight for your life, I say," I smirked, and decided to have a little fun with him. "Still, thanks. It's nice to have a big, strong doctor around to help keep me safe in the big, bad wasteland." His expression when I said that was priceless.

"Heh. You know, even though overt flattery will get you everywhere, I'd appreciate it more if you were honest with me. And I can tell, you're as straight as a ruler. Still..." He smirked, and pointed at me. "You. You're dangerous. But you can be my wingman anytime."

Did he just... yes he did. And here I thought I'd seen the only copy of that. I couldn't leave him hanging after setting up that quote so brilliantly, so I just smiled back him, barely able to hold back laughter.

"Bullshit. You can be mine."

The two of us just started cracking up. I slapped him on the shoulder, and we were both laughing so hard, we didn't hear when Cass and Veronica showed up.

"That was awesome!" Cass spoke up, and Arcade and I quieted down. "Drivin' th' car right into th' middle o' th' camp? That was th' ballsiest thing I've ever seen! I think y'ran over three of 'em b'fore anybody started shootin'!"

"Well, I'm glad you approve. And I'm glad you're both here. Veronica, I'm gonna need your help with something. Arcade, you too."

"What's up?" I heard her ask. She was smiling, but I think she was a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to have a go with her new toy.

"Just come with me. It'll be easier if you see it."

It didn't take long to get to the cage. Everyone was as shocked as I was when I'd first seen it. As soon as we got near, that same girl who'd warned me spoke up again.

"Can you... can you free us?" Her face was dirty, and what little hair I could see under her shawl was black and just as dirty.

"O'course we can, don't worry 'bout it," Cass said. She walked up to the fence, and did her best to give a hand of comfort through the chain links. "Where's the gate? We c'n prolly blast it off."

"It's over here," I said, pointing to it. It wasn't all that complicated, but picking it would take time. "Arcade."

He didn't need to be told twice. He took aim with his pistol, and the lock evaporated into a fine green mist. I was just about to fling open the doors when Veronica practically shouted my ears off.

"WAIT! We can't let them out!" She sounded worried. "At least... not yet."

"She's... right," the girl stated sadly. She grabbed at the collar around her neck.

"What? Why?" Cass demanded angrily.

"See those things around their necks?" Veronica pointed. "Those are bomb collars."

"Oh, fuck me," I cursed.

"Yeah..." Veronica gulped, and continued grimly. "They don't have much explosive. Just enough."

"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up. "The slave master, he... when he put us in here, he told us... the collars are linked. One explodes, they call explode."

"The good thing is," Veronica did her best to try and sound hopeful. It didn't really work. "I've seen bomb collars like this before. I know how to disarm them and remove them without detonating the rest. But... it's gonna take time." That was certainly fine by me, I thought.

"Take your time. Do it right, not quick." I turned to the girl at the fence. "What's your name?"

"Weathers," she said softly. "Samantha Weathers."

"Don't worry, Sam. We're gonna get you out of here. Arcade," I turned to the doctor. "Think you can give Veronica a hand, maybe tend to the wounded?"

"You got it boss," he said with a nod.

"What about me?" Cass asked. "What're we doin?"

"You're gonna help me put together a Legion uniform."

* * *

It took the two of us about five minutes to find enough dead Legionaries who still had intact pieces of uniforms to put together something that (I hoped) could pass for a Legion soldier.

"Think we got enough?" I asked. Cass nodded.

"Yeah, but there was somethin' weird though."

"What's weird?" I asked, sorting the pieces.

"All those Legionaries? They all had the same tattoo. S'only one, and they all had it on th' left shoulder. Just a simple tattoo, spelled out 'SPQR' in plain black letters. Got no idea what it means."

"It's the Mark of the Legion." A voice came out of nowhere that made us both jump. Boone was standing right behind us, still wearing his armor and still carrying the sniper rifle. "Every Legion soldier has it. Don't know why. Don't really care. But before I was discharged, NCR started checking for it. Try and root out Legion infiltrators."

While Boone was talking, I was stripping off my normal clothes, and bit by bit was reassembling a Legion uniform. I was about halfway finished when Boone spoke up again.

"You haven't told her, have you?"

"Told me what?" Cass looked confused.

"He's going to the fort without us," Boone said simply.

"What? Why?" Cass looked genuinely shocked and a little bit worried. "Y'got a death wish'r somethin'?"

"Nope. The opposite in fact," I put a crimson wrap of cloth around my lower face, and tried my damndest to ignore the smell and feel of a dead mans clothing pressing up against my nose and mouth. "If I go in alone, I should have an easier time of it. Besides... bringing you all along would make it complicated."

"How so?" Cass stepped closer, and looked about ready to slug me.

"Should I go down the list? Boone can't come because he's way too trigger happy when the Legion's concerned, and I wouldn't trust him not to just start shooting up the place. No offense."

"None taken," Boone said, nodding his head. "You're probably right."

"I can't take Arcade, because he's needed here taking care of the wounded slaves. I can't take Veronica, because she's busy disarming all those bomb collars, and even if she wasn't, I couldn't bring her to the fort for the same reason I can't bring you to back me up. You're both women - and I don't think I need to remind you what the Legion does to women. You'd both stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. And I really can't bring ED-E, because a flying metal ball is going to be really conspicuous around a bunch of soldiers that shun modern technology." As I spoke, I put on the finishing touches to the Legion outfit. With any luck, I could pass for a real Legionnaire.

"So, you're just going to go in alone then?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I've infiltrated raider camps, slaver camps, I even once snuck into an NCR base to deliver a package. I'll be fine. Now, help me get this off," I offered the arm with my Pip Boy to Cass. I'd undone the locks, but it didn't want to come off. With the two of us grabbing hold of it, it did finally come free from my arm... but for some reason, taking it off stung quite badly. There were a few red dots on my skin underneath where it had been. I didn't know if that was new or not, since before when I'd taken it off before hitting the sack, the lights had been off.

"So, you're not even going in with your Pip Boy then?" Cass asked. She was really looking worried now. I shook my head.

"Nope. That'll really stand out." I bent down to my pile of discarded clothes, and reached into the pants pocket, pulling out both my car keys and the Platinum Chip.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."


	21. Chapter 20: Fortification Hill

Chapter 20: Fortification Hill

* * *

Cass was quite cross with me.

She didn't want me to go up there all by myself - too much of a risk of me not coming back, she said. Eventually though, she did relent and let me go; although it must be said, she did get the last word in: "I swear, if you die out there, I'll kill ya!"

ED-E, on the other hand, had been much harder to dissuade. I was already a decent ways up the river when I heard him beep and whistle, hovering just behind me. I kept telling him that he couldn't follow me - if I was going to get in and get out, I needed to be as inconspicuous as possible, and having a floating metal ball hovering behind me would scream "THIS MAN IS AN INTRUDER! SHOOT HIM!" like a giant glowing neon sign above my head. He just let out a few sad sounding whistles, like a dog whimpering. Eventually though, I got him to turn around and let me continue up the river on my own.

I didn't really have much to do on the way there, except go over the plan... and go over what I had with me. Obviously I had the Platinum Chip - it was hidden in the palm of my left glove. I also had Roscoe hidden in the back of my pants, out of sight along with two extra mags. I didn't wear it on my hip because that's where I kept the machete I'd looted to keep me looking like a Legionnaire. I had three MFC grenades hidden in various places in the armor, and a flare tucked away in my right boot. I didn't bring That Gun with me, because I had no place to hide it.

It took nearly an hour going upriver before I saw the first signs of Caesar's camp. By that time it was just starting to get dark... but that just made the torches easier to see. It was a small dock, sticking out of the Arizona side of the river, with two torches and a single Legion soldier standing guard. When I got close enough, he threw me a rope and helped me guide the boat into dock.

So far, so good. All I had to do was keep playing it casual as you please, and with any luck I'd be on my way out within the hour.

"Ave. True to Caesar," the Legionnaire said to me as I stepped off the boat. He thumped his fist on his chest as a salute, and I returned the gesture. He looked me up and down once, and just as I was about to try and make my way past him, he said "You have the look of a Speculatore about you. Tell me, what is your business back at the fort?"

"I'm here to deliver an urgent message to Vulpes Inculta," I told him. I'd had plenty of time to think of an excuse on my way up river. I'd forced myself to remember what I'd seen in Nipton - specifically, Vulpes, and what he'd said to me: _"I am Vulpes Inculta, commander of the mighty Caesar's Frumentarii."_ If my hunch was correct, the Frumentarii were spies, and for an army that didn't use radios, it was likely they'd use runners to deliver their messages.

Hopefully, the cover would wash. I mean, I was still a courier, after all.

"What kind of urgent message? I was under the impression all the patrols were in from today," he said. He was starting to sound very suspicious. So I had to think fast.

"That is not for you to know," I said as forcefully as I could from behind the cloth in front of my mouth. "This report is for the eyes and ears of Vulpes Inculta only, until he tells me otherwise." I pulled the machete from my belt. "I could tell you... but then I'd have to slit your throat."

To his credit, he didn't flinch. He just stepped to the side, and gestured an arm to let me pass. I sheathed the machete and walked off the dock. As I passed, the Legion soldier called back "You certainly speak like one of The Fox's men. No respect for honorable combat."

It was a very long hike from the dock up to the actual fort itself. The walls at the end of the pass must've been ten feet high, and looked like they were made out of a really thick metal. There were a pair of Legionnaires at the top of the wall with hunting rifles, stationed on either side of an open drawbridge. I just marched through the gate like I owned the place and into the fort... the first part of the fort, anyway. There was another, slightly smaller hill, up another winding path with another wall and an open drawbridge.

Nobody had shot me yet, but aside from the guards on the wall and maybe one or two other Legionnaires I saw patrolling the perimeter, I didn't really see anyone else. Maybe it was just the darkness... but that couldn't be it, there were torches everywhere, lighting the way. I pressed on, trying my best not to be unnerved.

And then, as I was walking up the hill... that was when I got my first look down the _other_ side of the hill.

I just stopped and stared. I couldn't help myself. All along the other side, stretching all the way to the coast of Lake Mead, were tents. There were hundreds of the damn things, maybe thousands of them. I can't be sure, because I didn't actually stay there long enough to count. I suppose in the back of my mind, I knew that any army that was a threat to the NCR would have to have been huge, but it wasn't until that moment, when I looked down the hill and saw just how many tents there were, that I finally got a sense of just how _massive_ Caesar's Legion really was.

* * *

The deeper and deeper I went into Caesar's camp, the more worried I got. I was seeing a lot less sports equipment, for one; most of the Legionaries I saw up here were wearing real armor - metal chest plates and what looked like some kind of kevlar underneath. All around, I could see men working. Some of them looked like they were training, and some of them looked like they were making weapons... and not just blades, but guns and explosives. Lots of guns and explosives.

The thing that scared me the most, however, was the howitzer. I've seen artillery pieces in the past, mostly on NCR or abandoned US military bases. But more importantly, I've seen what they can do: really big guns making even bigger explosions. And when I passed it, I realized that it was pointed directly at Hoover Dam.

I suddenly got a nagging feeling in the back of my head warning me that gun would be problematic.

I kept my head down, and stuck to the shadows as best as I could. Ducking in and out of unoccupied tents, avoiding the groups of Legionaries marching around the fort... I have to admit, I was starting to miss my Pip Boy. I'll be honest, the thing I was missing the most at that moment was the radar.

I turned a corner, and came face to face with a group of four Legionaries headed right towards me. I tried not to look suspicious when I walked into a nearby tent and closed the flap shut. The Legionaries kept walking... all except one. I could see his silhouette against the fabric of the tent. I pulled out Roscoe in one hand and the machete in the other, just in case. If he was suspicious, and figured out I wasn't actually Legion, I'd have to get rid of him. So I waited on the inside of the tent, holding my breath, and hoped I'd be able to take care of him quietly if he decided to be nosy.

The other Legionaries ahead of him called out. I couldn't tell what they said, but shortly after, the silhouette walked away. I let out a sigh of relief. And then tensed up again when I heard a voice from behind me.

"Are... are you here for me?"

I pointed Roscoe at the voice out of reflex. I'm just glad I didn't fire. Sitting on a filthy piece of cardboard and wearing even filthier rags was a small girl. She couldn't have been more than ten years old, maybe eleven. It looked like she was trying to hide behind one of the metal poles keeping the tent up. She was skinny, and probably malnourished, and her rags had a red "X" painted on them. More than anything else though, she looked terrified.

I put Roscoe and the machete away immediately and held up my hands in what I hoped would be a disarming gesture.

"Whoa, hey! Uh, sorry. I didn't know this tent was occupied," She just shrank backward even more, and bowed her head down. It looked like parts of her head had been shaved, and what little hair she had was filthy and matted against her head

"I-I'm sorry... I forgot I wasn't... wasn't supposed to speak... I'm sorry... please don't-" This poor girl looked on the verge of tears. I had to get her to calm down... I had to think of something. So I did the only thing I could think of. I took off the goggles, the face wrap, and lowered my hood.

"Hey, calm down! I'm not gonna hurt you. I mean, er, I'm not even Legion!" Honestly, this was probably a bad move, blowing my cover like this. But I couldn't think of anything else. The tiny girl picked her head up and no longer looked like she was about to cry, but she still eyed me with fear. "Seriously, I'm not Legion. Look," I pulled up my left sleeve to show her my arm - scarred, but lacking the Legion tattoo Cass had told me about earlier. She just stared at my arm for a minute or two before finally speaking up.

"Um... If you're not Legion, then what... what are you doing here?" She still looked a little scared, but not of me.

"That... is a long story," I scratched the back of my head and chuckled softly, trying to take the edge off. She just stayed quiet. "What's your name?"

"...Melody."

"Listen, Melody, I've just got to do some... stuff. Could you do me a favor, and just... not tell anyone you saw me?"

"You're... you're not gonna do anything to me, are you?" She shrank back, wrapping her arms around her legs and pressing them against her chest as she asked.

"Nnnno? I didn't even know you were in here. Why would you think I would- " I stopped dead as a thought hit me. No... that would be sick, even for Legion. Doing something like that would be... beyond monstrous.

"Because..." Melody gulped audibly. "Because sometimes, some Legion soldiers... um... I mean... I'm supposed to tell people that I take care of the brahmin, and bring water to the soldiers, and that's it. But... sometimes they... I mean..." She got very quiet, and stopped talking altogether.

It felt like my brain stopped working. Not because I didn't understand. I could read between the lines just fine. I just _didn't want to understand_. I didn't want to accept that there were people, even in this broken shell of a world, who were capable of such mind-numbing savagery. I'd never even seen raiders stoop that low. I'd heard of, and even seen, raiders eating people before, but never...

And then my brain started working again, and all I saw was red. I felt a level of hatred towards the Legion that I'd never felt towards anything or anyone before. All I wanted at that particular moment was to kill every single Legionnaire here. But I also knew that I had a job to do.

"Listen, Meldoy," I said as calmly as I could muster; it took a lot of effort to keep my voice from wavering as I spoke. "There's something I have to do. But as soon as I'm done, I'm going to come right back here - and then I'm going to get you out of here." As I spoke, I started putting my headgear back on.

"Get... me..." For the first time since I'd entered the tent, Melody didn't look scared.

"I'm going to come back to free you. And then I'm going to take you somewhere safe. I know a group called the Followers of the Apocalypse. I know the name sounds bad, but they're doctors and teachers - they take care of people. You should be safe with them," As safe as you can get in the wasteland, at least.

"You... you promise?" she asked. She looked almost hopeful. I put up the hood and nodded.

"I promise," I lifted the tent flap, and scanned the outside. I didn't see any Legionnaires nearby. "And when I make a promise, I keep it."

* * *

It took me 15 minutes to get from Melody's tent to the weather station at the western edge of the fort. I had to use all my self control not to just start shooting up the place. Of course, even I realized that would be suicide. So I kept low, stuck to the shadows, and kept Roscoe in it's holster until I found my way to the weather station House told me about. There's no way I could've missed it - it was a concrete box with an antennae array sticking 30 feet in the air.

I pulled the door out, and walked inside... only to see three heavily armored legion soldiers staring back at me. Every single one of them wore metal armor fashioned to look like a heavily muscled chest, and they wore helmets with ornamental red frills on the top complete with a metal mask sculpted to look like a weeping face. These soldiers also were not armed with machetes - they had those same kind of shotgun fists I'd seen earlier at the Gun Runners.

"Who are you?" the lead Legionnaire spoke up, walking towards me. "No one is allowed in this building without the express permission of the mighty Caesar." I palmed one of the MFC grenades behind me and did my best to pull out the pin with my thumb.

"Oh, sorry, er, sir. I think I came here by mistake. Sorry about that. I'll just be going," I kept a firm hold of the grenade, making sure the striker wouldn't activate as I edged my way back towards the door.

"You did not answer my question, Legionnaire. What is your name? Who is your Decanus?" The two soldiers on either side of the one advancing on me loaded shells into their ballistic fists.

"Oh, you want to know my name?" I tossed the grenade at the Legionnaire, who ducked; it bounced off the back wall, and rolled back towards the soldiers. I bolted for the door, and just before I slammed it shut, I said "It's Eff Ewe!" I leaned against the heavy metal door as hard as I could, and braced myself for the worst.

There was a very loud, but muffled, explosion from inside; it sort of sounded like Arcade's plasma pistol, only amplified - like a million methane bubbles exploding all at once. The door shook so much, it felt like it was going to rattle my teeth out. But I held firm against the door. It probably helped that the door felt like it was two and a half inches of metal.

I stayed leaning against the door for a few seconds after the explosion. I looked around - I couldn't see any Legion soldiers nearby. I could hear the sounds of Legionnaires exercising off in the distance, but the sounds didn't seem close enough for them to have heard anything. So, with trepidation, I opened the door and stepped back inside.

As I expected, it was a mess. A rather satisfying mess, it must be said. The walls had been painted a satisfying mixture of blood and slowly smoldering glowing green goo. I looked down at my feet - one of the Legionnaires arms hadn't been completely disintegrated, and the stump that used to connect to a now non-existent body was glowing with that same green goo and smoking. The walls, floors, and ceiling were surprisingly undamaged... as was a console on the right side of the building.

This must be the console House told me about. I did my best to wipe away the blood that had been splattered on it, and looked for a slot similar to the one I'd seen in the penthouse of the Lucky 38... sure enough, there it was. I took the Platinum Chip out of its hiding spot in my glove, and pressed it into the slot. There was a whir, and a click as it disappeared into the machine.

A moment later, the ground rumbled, and a hatch in the floor opened up (displacing a rather large piece of smoldering meat, which rolled off to the side), revealing a staircase. The console clicked again, and returned the Platinum Chip. I grabbed it, drew Roscoe, and cautiously made my way down the stairs. It wasn't that long of a trip - 20 steps, maybe - before I found myself at a rusted elevator door, emblazoned with the emblem of the Lucky 38.

"I guess I'm going the right way..." I said to myself, walking slowly towards the elevator doors. They creaked open with a shudder, displacing a great deal of dust, and I cautiously stepped into the elevator. It didn't feel like it went down too far before a second pair of doors on the opposite side opened up.

I had Roscoe pointed at the doors as they opened - I had no idea what to expect, and I didn't want to take any chances. It dumped me into a short, dimly-lit metal corridor, like it was running on emergency power. The smell was overpowering, like sulfur, and had a strange metallic taste; more than anything else though, it was **hot. **I started sweating as soon as the elevator doors opened. Cautiously, I made my way down the corridor, and found myself in a small room with a large monitor against one wall. The screen flickered, and the familiar face of Mr. House greeted me.

"I see that you reached your destination safely," he said, his digital image still as a grave. "You look ridiculous, wearing that Legion uniform. But I suppose a level of subterfuge was needed to get here. Well then, shall we get to work?"

"Sure. How about we start by you telling me what this place is?" I asked, wiping the sweat off my brow.

"It's a facility I built many years before you were born," No shit, I thought. "You might think of it as a barracks. You'll understand soon enough."

"Alright... so why'd you send me down here?"

"Please, don't interrupt," House snapped. I just snorted. "As you know, the Platinum Chip upgrades my Securitons' operating software. Well... there's an army of them here. The Securitons policing the Strip are but a fraction of the total number manufactured. The rest, I stored here. I need you to manually upload the data from the Chip to the facility's primary computer. There's a terminal at the other end of the facility."

"Seems easy enough," I said with a shrug.

"Yes, well... there's a complication." Wonderful.

"What else is new?" I grumbled under my breath. "So what's this complication then?"

"While I can broadcast to this screen, the equipment failure that made me comatose for several decades after The War has severed my control of the facility's systems. That means I can't deactivate the security bots... most of which appear to be active, according to the status board I'm looking at."

"You've got to be shitting me!" I practically yelled at the screen. I wiped my brow again; I'd barely been down here five minutes, and I was feeling like I'd been out in the desert sun without water for hours. House kept his casino in sub-zero temperatures, but he kept this bunker as hot as a furnace? That didn't make sense - or maybe this had something to do with that equipment failure?

"I most certainly am not 'shitting you,' Mr. Fisher. If I recall correctly, there should be a security room near the base of the stairs... perhaps you can deactivate them yourself?" I looked to the far end of the room - there was a door and, presumably, another set of stairs. Oh joy.

"Alright. So, what are you going to do with this army of Securitrons, once I activate it?"

"My army will do what an army does best - defend territory from invaders... and maintain order."

"Alright, alright, fine... let's get this damn thing over with," I glared at the Platinum Chip in my hands. I wish I'd never taken the job in the first place. Hell, I was wishing I'd never taken the job when I got shot in the head. This damn thing was proving to be more trouble than it was worth.

"Good. I won't hold you up any longer," And with that, House's image disappeared from the screen, and was replaced by the words **CONNECTION LOST...**

"Yeah, that's not ominous or anything..." I made my way to the stairs, and stood in the doorway just long enough to register the sound of a laser charging up. I ducked to the side and out of sight just in time to see a lance of crimson energy cut through the air and impact into the ceiling with a fizzling pop.

**"HALT. THIS IS A LAWFUL USE OF DEADLY FORCE,"** a mechanical voice called out, accompanied by a very recognizable series of clunks. **"ALL NON COMBATANTS, PLEASE: EXIT THE AREA IN AN ORDERLY FASHION."** Yep, that clinched it - I was up against Protectrons. As far as I was concerned, I'd finally caught a break. Yes, they were armed with lasers, but they were notoriously slow, legendarily dim-witted and stupid, and above all else: horrible shots. I heard once that if you're fighting a Protectron, the safest place is directly in front of it.

I popped back into the doorframe, took aim with Roscoe, and... suddenly I became very much aware that I didn't have VATS. A laser blast arced up towards me, and shot perilously close to my ear. So I concentrated, took aim, and fired. A single clean shot right through the dome; there was a shower of glass and sparks, and the robot crashed backwards with a metal thud.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I gingerly stepped over the broken robot, and quickly scanned the corridors for more robots. After the second glance, I leaned against one of the nearby walls, pounded a fist against my chest and coughed a few times; for some reason, I found the air down here difficult to breathe.

I shook it off - I've never really been comfortable underground. I've ventured into a few Vaults in the past, and a few smaller abandoned fallout shelters, and I've hated them all. Just something about the closeness of the walls, and the idea that above your head was probably several hundred tons of earth and rock - and all it would take was the slightest nudge to make it collapse and leave you with no way out.

I eventually found the security room - if you could call it that. One wall was lined with a few lockers, and three RobCo computer terminals stuck out of the adjacent wall. In the corner was a pair of ammo boxes, so I decided to check and see if I could find anything useful. What I found was a plasma rifle (with a melted firing chamber, making it little better than a paperweight), two microfusion cells, a hammer, some scrap metal, a roll of duct tape, two plasma grenades, and an EMP grenade. So I grabbed the grenades and decided to try my luck with the terminals.

The terminal on the far right, labeled "sentry bots" above the monitor, was completely broken. The terminal on the far left, labeled "protectrons," looked like it was encrypted far too heavily for me to even attempt. But the one in the middle, labeled "turrets" appeared to be well within my ability to crack.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Sheason, why would you, a courier living in the post apocalyptic wasteland, even bother learning how to hack a computer? The answer is pretty simple, actually. These terminals aren't as rare as you might think, thanks to how durable they are. Being able to crack the security of one can be pretty useful - right now is probably a good case in point. As for how I'd know what to do? That's thanks to that Big Book of Science I have in my trunk. There's a whole chapter devoted to cracking the firmware BIOS of computer terminals.

All I had to do was remember the debug commands, sift through the lines of code that would pop up, and pick out the password from the noise. Of course, the heat wasn't helping me think any. In fact, I was starting to get a headache, it was so damn hot. So, again, I wiped the sweat off my brow and pressed on. It took me a couple tries, but eventually I cracked the security, and disabled the turrets.

With that done, I left the security room and made my way down the adjacent hallway that led deeper into the facility. It was getting a lot harder to breathe now, and my headache was getting worse; this couldn't be just due to the heat and nerves. Something was seriously wrong. But I couldn't think about that right now. I just had to finish the job and leave the Fort with Melody.

A pair of laser blasts cut through the air as I arrived at the end of the hallway, and I dove to the floor. Beyond the hallway's exit was a decently large atrium, and through the dim light I could just make out the shapes of two Protectrons slowly clanking their way towards me, and firing lasers wildly. I took careful aim and... I missed. I kept firing, and I kept missing. Finally, I was able to land two decent shots, and the robot fell. The same thing happened with the other one. What should have taken two bullets cost me what I had left of an entire 13 round clip. I only had 26 bullets left for Roscoe now.

I picked myself up, and walked into the atrium, and noticed that the walls had windows - and looking in were Securitrons'... or, they would be looking in if they were activated. Their face screens were blank. I walked up to one of them to get a closer look, and by chance I glanced behind it.

"Holy shit," I said aloud to myself. "House wasn't kidding." There were rows and rows of Securitrons lining the floor behind the glass. There were easily several hundred of the damn things in there... waiting.

I wiped my brow again and picked up the pace. My headache was getting worse - my vision was starting to blur around the edges. I rushed down the corridors, past several disabled sentry turrets (I was coherent enough to be thankful that I'd been able to turn them off - they were Mark IV laser turrets: they aren't really better shots than Protectrons, but fire about 6 lasers a second. If I hadn't turned them off, I probably would've been a smoking pile of ash by now.) and found myself in a generator room. I rounded a corner, and found myself face to face with about four Protectrons, who all shot more lasers at me.

"Give me a fuckin' break already!" I yelled, popping off a trio of shots and diving back behind the generator. I tried to shake away my ever increasing headache.

"Fuck it," I grabbed the pulse grenade, flipped open the button cover on the top, pressed the button and tossed it over the generator. There was an electric crackle, and a blue flash as the pulse grenade went off. Electricity arced off the walls, and I could hear pops and sparks as the Protectrons vital components overloaded and exploded, one by one.

More stairs. Great.

I only got halfway there before I unexpectedly lost my balance. I grabbed at the wall to try and steady myself

Shake it off. Keep going.

Up the stairs.

Turn the corner.

Up more stairs.

Finally. There it was: the same kind of console that opened the hatch in the weather station. Next to it was a window, with more blank-screened Securitrons looking in and waiting. I leaned against the console, palmed the Chip in my hands and started coughing. I saw red splatter against the console.

Fuck.

Had I been hit by a laser without realizing? Was something else wrong? I didn't really have time to think about it. So I put the Platinum Chip in the slot, and wiped the blood from my mouth. There was a soft whir from the machine, and then my entire world became noise. What was probably heavy hydraulics kicked in and started a rhythmic pounding that reverberated all through the facility. Outside the window, the Securitrons' screens blinked and showed that same cartoon soldier face.

The console clicked again, and spat out the Platinum Chip. I grabbed it, put it back in it's hiding spot, and started running back the way I came. I did my best to ignore the pounding in my head, and tried to force my vision to clear. Finally, I made my way back to the room with the large monitor against the wall. I was about to pass by and head back into the elevator when the screen winked back into life, and House started talking to me.

"Your work here is done, Mr. Fisher. Return to the Lucky 38 so we can discuss the next steps," He said. I tried to nod, but all I ended up doing was leaning against the doorframe. I resisted the urge to cough, for fear of coughing up more blood. "You have a very bright future ahead of you. Thanks to your actions today, so does the rest of mankind."

And then, without so much as waiting for a response (not like I'd be able to give one) the screen winked off again. Fine with me. I wasn't really in the mood for another of House's long-winded speeches right now.

I stumbled back down the hallway, and collapsed into the open elevator. The doors slid themselves shut agonizingly slow. When they finally shut, I immediately felt so much cooler. I was still sweating all over, and I could feel some blood leaking out of my mouth... and my nose, too. But at least I was out of that fucking underground deathtrap.

The doors on the opposite side of the elevator opened, and I started walking towards the stairs. Before I could make my way up and out of the weather station, I felt my insides convulse violently, and before I knew what hit me, I started vomiting all over the walls. I couldn't help myself.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Ok. I just had to keep moving. Get up the stairs, get out of the weather station, find Melody, and leave the Fort. Easy.

Well, I was able to get up the stairs easily enough. It wasn't until I left the weather station that I ran into problems.

I opened the door, and before I got five feet -

WHACK.

Then my world became darkness.


	22. Chapter 21: Caesar

Chapter 21: Caesar

* * *

Have you ever woken up, and not been entirely certain you were awake? The sensation of awareness, and the realization that you should, in fact, be awake, but you're unable to breathe, unable to see, and unable to hear anything.

It's not pleasant.

I woke up to that sensation. But a split second later it was replaced by the feel of cold water completely surrounding my head. I opened my mouth, and the taste of filthy water came rushing in. Water flooded my nostrils and my ears, and my eyes stung when I tried to open them. My first instinct was to struggle, try and find some air... but I couldn't move. I could feel hands gripping both my arms, holding me in place. And then I realized there was a hand on the back of my head, grasping my hair, and forcing me down into the water.

The grip around my hair tightened, and my head was yanked out of the water. I gasped as soon as my head was free, trying to suck in as much air as my lungs could hold.

"That's enough. For now," I heard a calm, authoritative voice say. I tried to shake the water from my vision (which is a lot harder when someone is holding your hair). I know that voice...

"I must say, Courier, I certainly didn't expect to see you again. At least, not so soon."

"Vulpes!" I spat. I coughed again, and my vision finally cleared. Standing in front of me was Vulpes Inculta, except he wasn't wearing the sports equipment and fox head that I'd seen before in Nipton. This time, he was wearing that same kind of burnished metal armor and chestplate I'd seen on the three Legionnaires in the weather station, except he didn't have a helmet or ballistic fist. His hand rested instead on the hilt of the same sword I'd seen him wear on his hip at Nipton.

I was actually somewhat surprised when I finally got a good look at his face - I hadn't expected him to have white hair.

"Did you really think you could just walk into the fortress of the mighty Caesar undetected? His eyes and ears see all." Vulpes smiled widely. His canine teeth seemed oddly sharper than they should've been. Or maybe whatever happened to me in the Securitron vault and being halfway drowned was having an effect on my perception. "And I am his eyes and ears."

I coughed hard again, and saw a splatter of blood fly out of my mouth into the barrel of water below my head. The water was slightly pink from, presumably, all the blood that was leaking out of my face.

"Alright, so you caught me. Congratu-fuckin-lations," I spat out more blood, overshooting the barrel so it landed by his feet. "If you're gonna kill me, get it over with." Vulpes merely laughed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Don't worry your profligate head, Courier. I'm not going to kill you," He paused, then added softly "At least... not yet."

"So what the fuck do you want with me then, if you're not gonna off me?" Instead of replying, he merely pointed down. Guessing what was coming next, I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath. Sure enough, the hand on the back of my head shoved my face back down beneath the water. I couldn't tell how long my head was kept under. It probably wasn't any longer than a minute or two before the hand gripping my hair pulled me back to the surface.

"Don't interrupt again, Courier," He walked towards me slowly as he spoke. "Here's what will happen. We are going to bring you before Caesar. And then he will decide what to do with you." He nodded with his head, and I felt myself be lifted off the ground by the two Legion soldiers on either side of me. I tried to wriggle free, but they had grips like vices. It probably didn't help that I was still feeling sick from the bunker. "Caesar wishes to see the one who has caused him no end of trouble."

* * *

I hate being a prisoner.

I know that seems kind of obvious, but this kind of situation has happened far too often for my liking. Of course, the last time I was a prisoner, all I had to contend with were half a dozen incompetent raiders, a couple of dogs, and a big pit. Those morons weren't even smart enough to search me for weapons. Now though, I was surrounded by heavily armed, incredibly disciplined slavers on either side and behind me.

I couldn't even turn my head to get a look behind me, because every time I even slightly moved my head, a hand on the back of my skull forced me to look forward, accompanied by an "Eyes forward, profligate!"

I had to take stock of my situation - and, I'll be honest, everything seemed quite bleak. I couldn't feel Roscoe, That Gun, the stolen machete, any of my spare ammo, or any of the Microfusion Cell grenades anywhere on my person. I couldn't look around me. Both my arms were held by big burly guards. Who knows what was wrong with me from my relatively short time in the Securitron vault, but whatever it was, I couldn't stop bleeding, and I still wanted to vomit. I didn't have my Pip Boy, so even if I could somehow escape and get my guns and ammo, I was limited to VATS-less combat. A thought flashed through my head, wondering if it was a bad thing that I'd gotten so used to that in such a short time.

About the only thing I had going for me at the moment was the fact that I still had the Platinum Chip. I could feel it within the folds of my left glove, hidden away discreetly. The fact that I still had it was either very good, or very bad.

I didn't have much time to dwell on it, either - because my guards had finally guided me up to the highest point of the fort, where a very large red tent sat. The entrance was guarded by two of those same kind of Legion soldiers with the metal breastplates and metal facemasks that I'd seen guarding the Securitron vault. Above the tent flap that acted as a door was a large bronze disk, emblazoned with the image of a man in profile with a prominent hook nose.

My guards shoved me through the scratchy red cloth, and I finally got a good look at Caesar. He was slouching in a throne made out of spears, animal skulls, furs, and red cloth. Around his head was a wreath of gold plated leaves, partially obscuring his mostly bald head. His nose was, if anything, more absurdly prominent in real life than it was on the brass relief outside his tent. His armor was similar to the breastplates of the guards on either side of him, except it was much more elaborate, and a red sash was draped over his shoulders, held at his left shoulder by a golden disk.

Caesar merely glared at me as the two soldiers shoved me further into the tent. When I was standing roughly 10 paces away from the throne, Vulpes came up next to me and smacked me hard behind the knees with what felt like a riding crop. It stung like a motherfucker, and my knees buckled reflexively from the strike. The weight of the two soldiers pressing down on my shoulders forced me down on the ground.

"You will bend the knee before the mighty Caesar, profligate!" I would've spat more blood at him, except I was slightly distracted when he took the riding crop and struck me in the back of the head. Not surprisingly, I saw stars.

"So," Caesar finally spoke. He started drumming his fingers on the arm rest, the noise drawing my gaze - and I realized he was wearing a Displacer Glove, a very rare piece of old world technology. Before I could question it further, he continued speaking. "I finally get to meet the Courier who has accomplished so much in so little time. I've heard a lot about you. I thought you'd be taller."

"And I thought you'd have more hair," I tried to smirk, but the image was probably ruined by the trail of blood I could feel leaking out of the corner of my mouth. Vulpes whacked me upside the head with his stick again.

"You certainly have balls, I'll give you that much. I mean, a man nearly kills you, and your response is to track him across the breadth of the Mojave? You arrive on the strip, and assassinate the head of the Chairmen in his own casino - and get away with it? You waltz into the Lucky 38 like someone left you a key under the doormat? Then something happens to Mr. House's robots - some kind of military upgrade? When you set your mind to something, you get results. I'd like that... if you hadn't set your mind on fucking with me, too."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't think anyone was fucking with you except the NCR. Hell, if your ass wasn't such a big target, stickin' in the air like tha-" Vulpes whacked me in the back of the head again, cutting me off, and I saw stars. It was worth it, though - if this really was it, and I was going to die, I'd be damned if I wasn't going out like a smartass.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Courier. And it's not like it's been hard to track your progress - you haven't exactly been keeping a low profile. Six of my patrols across the river wiped out. A very reliable slave trader my men can rely on shot in the head on the road to Novac. My camp at Nipton nearly wiped out. And now you try and sneak into my camp, heading straight for the one place with doors that can't be pried open or drilled open or blasted open. I know opening the doors like that don't work, because all that, I tried. Isn't that interesting?"

"Oh, come on. You must be exaggerating. I only know about the one patrol in Henderson." I was whacked upside the head, yet again.

"I don't know what's on the other side of those doors," Caesar continued, ignoring me. "And I don't like not knowing. But if the ground shaking a few minutes was any indication - you do. So you're going to tell me how you got in, and then you're going to do exactly what I tell you."

"I guess the all seeing eyes of the mighty Caesar aren't so fucking all seeing now, are they?" I coughed out a laugh. My fist clenched around the Platinum Chip. Apparently, Caesar still didn't know about it. Or maybe he did, and he was just trying to get me to admit it. "I can't tell you how I got in. I don't know. But if you want to know what's inside, I can tell you that much."

"So what the fuck are you waiting for? Speak." Caesar sneered.

"It's," I coughed again, and felt more blood leak out of both my nose and mouth. "It's your dad, taking it up the ass."

The next thing I knew, I was being pulled off the ground by my hair, and Caesar's left fist cracked me across the jaw. It hurt, sure, but I still laughed at how easily I set him off. He grabbed the hair on the top of my head and forced me to look right at his gigantic nose.

"Do you think this is a game, you fucking little piece of shit? Do you think I won't kill you if you don't cooperate? You are in my house, and when I give you an order, you'll fucking obey me!"

"Alright, fine. You wanna know what's in the bunker? It's an army of robots. What do you want me to say?" Caesar just glared at me even harder. He was starting to turn red. I almost thought steam was going to pour out of his ears in a minute.

"You just don't get it, do you? The weapons I wield are forged from blood, flesh, sinew, bone - mortal stuff. Fragile even," He really started getting angrier, spittle flying in my face. "And yet my Legion obeys me, even unto death. Why? Because they live to serve the greater good, and they know no alternatives. Even if I did believe you - which I don't - House's machines, and all the technology of the old world... what do they propose? The possibility of victory without sacrifice. No blood spilled, just... rivets. That's not an idea I want put in circulation. If mankind is going to survive this moment in history, it needs warriors, not gadgets."

"So why are you wearing a displacer glove, then?" I retorted without missing a beat. His eyes went wide and he stepped back about a foot, but his face was still plastered with a look of pure, unfiltered rage. "You talk of shunning old world technology, but you're carrying a piece of it on your fist. You know you can't win against the NCR with blood alone, since last time you tried to cross the river, you got fucked in the ass and ran away with your tail between your legs." I fully expected Vulpes to whack me with his stick again, but when he didn't, I continued. "That's why the soldiers on this side aren't wearing sports equipment, isn't that right? And why you have that howitzer pointed at the dam. You can't win against the tech from the old world unless you use some of it yourself, and you fucking know it. "

"You know what I hate more than anything else, Caesar?" I spat a bit of blood close to his feet. "**Hypocrites**. And you're the biggest one of all." Caesar looked about ready to have an aneurysm. He was grinding his teeth, and I swear I saw a blood vessel pop in one of his eyes. Then he closed his mouth into a scowl, and inhaled sharply through his nose.

"Let him go," is all he said to the two Legion soldiers on either side of me. Without question, they let go of my arms and immediately started backing up. Before I could run, there was a crackle of electricity surrounding Caesar's displacer glove. For some reason, all I really remember of the actual point of impact when he hit me in the chest was the sonic boom that made my ears pop.

For the second time in what must have only been ten minutes, my world turned into darkness and pain.

* * *

When I regained consciousness, I couldn't really breathe. I mean, theoretically, I could - I didn't wake up with my face underwater like before - but the simple act of breathing sent waves of agony through my entire body, and every part of me just felt _wrong_. I was lying on my back, staring up at the sky, not knowing who the fuck I was, where I was. or what in the hell I was doing.

I rolled over, and tried to look around. My vision was blurry, and my head was swimming, but I was coherent enough to recognize that I was in the middle of a sandy pit, surrounded by metal walls, and that I was almost certainly screwed. My insides heaved, and I vomited a mixture of blood and bile onto the sand.

It took all my willpower to force myself to keep breathing, despite the misery and torture filling my lungs with air had become. Very slowly, I picked myself up and tried to stand on my own two feet. Every part of me was either shaking or screaming at me to get back down on the ground and just die. It was around that point that I heard a voice come from somewhere above me... a voice that I was coming to despite with an intense hatred.

"Due to your crimes against the Legion," Vulpes shouted, his voice echoing in my ears. "And due to the extremely disrespectful manner in which you spoke to the mighty Caesar, Son of Mars and the Lord and Master of all he sets his eyes upon, despite his extremely generous and forgiving mood as your host, you, Sheason Fisher, also known as The Courier, are hereby declared an enemy of Caesar's Legion. You are therefore to be sentenced to a trial by combat in the Arena. May you die with the honor you never possessed in life, profligate."

Even through the haze and pain, I remember thinking just how fucking ironic it was that Vulpes was saying I had no honor. But I didn't really have time to dwell on that little mental nugget, because a metal gate - at least, I thought it was a metal gate, given the sound of grinding metal it made - was opening in the wall opposite me. I coughed again, and my right knee buckled, sending me to my hands and knees.

And there, sitting in front of me on the sand, was a machete.

I grabbed it without thinking, and unsteadily got back onto my feet. When I looked up to see what had come through the door, I couldn't help but laugh grimly at the strange sense of déjà vu that washed over me. If I was only almost certainly screwed before, I was completely and absolutely fucked now. The soldier standing in front of me was nearly a head taller than me, with huge bulging muscles that looked about ready to burst out of his skin, and a metal helmet and face concealing mask that looked like a cross between a Spanish Conquistador helmet and a colander. In one hand he carried a massive two-headed axe, and in the other he carried a sword as big as my torso. The whole getup put me in mind of an outfit I'd seen in an old gladiator movie holotape I'd seen years ago.

I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. And then he chuckled.

"You'd think they would've given me a challenge this time," he said in a voice I was sure only I heard. He looked up, pounded a fist against his chest, and shouted: "Ave, mighty Caesar! We who are about to die, salute you!"

I probably wouldn't get a better chance, so while he was saluting to Caesar, I shoved the machete towards his bare chest. I was hoping my luck might turn, and he'd actually die like he said he would. But my movements were slow and sluggish, and both my brain and body weren't cooperating. The machete was maybe 6 inches away from him when he brought his sword down against my machete. It was hit with such a tremendous force, it was knocked out of my hands and flew through the air, banging against the metal wall.

"... Fuck." I think is all I managed to say. I'm not really sure. What I am sure of was that I was backhanded by a massive fist, and sent sprawling to the ground. I slid against the sand, and only came to a stop when my head banged against the metal wall of the arena. My ears started ringing... either that, or he was laughing. Maybe both.

"This is going to be over too quickly!" I barely heard him say over the ringing in my ears. I tried to force my eyes open, and push myself up off the ground. Everything was sideways. I saw a pair of feet through the fog, and then I saw an axe and a sword drop to the ground on either side of the feet. And lying on the ground right in front of me, between myself and the slowly advancing pair of feet, was the machete.

Surely, trying to do the same thing twice couldn't possibly yield the same result, right?

I summoned up what little strength I had left, and pushed myself off the ground, grabbing the machete as I moved. My vision righted itself, despite still being hazy, and I rushed forwards at the giant slab of Legion meat. I swung the machete, and...

He blocked my arm with his. My swing didn't even manage to get close. Before I knew what was happening, he wrapped his arm around mine, and -

SNAP.

Hang on, my arm isn't supposed to bend that way.

I think I screamed. I know I dropped the machete. He let go of my broken arm, and kicked me in the stomach. It's not like I even stumbled backwards; I just flew and landed flat on my back, looking up at the sky again. Every single nerve in my body was screaming at me to just give up and die already.

But he wasn't finished. The massive mountain of meat and metal was standing above me now, obscuring my view of the moon. He brought down his foot on my hand, and slowly started to apply pressure. I couldn't scream if I wanted to. My lungs were completely empty. Everything was pain. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. I could barely breathe.

"Do you yield, profligate?" He growled at me.

"Ffffff..." I tried to squeeze out words. "Ffffff..." was all I could manage.

"What was that?" He growled again. "Speak up!"

And then, for a very brief moment, I was able to find words again.

"Ffffffuuuck... your... mother..." I forced out before the back of my throat began to fill with blood. My vision was clouding over to such an extent that I could barely see the moon as it sped across the sky and suddenly changed directions.

Wait.

Hang on.

What was the moon doing?

Apparently, I wasn't hallucinating, because the Legion soldier who had, just seconds earlier, been crushing the bones in my hand, stepped back and looked towards the sky at the spherical, moon shaped object getting closer.

And then, I heard the most glorious sound in the world: tinny, patriotic marching music belching from an Eyebot's speaker grille.

ED-E zoomed through the air above my head, and I heard the distinctive sound of his laser discharging. There was rumble in the air, that sounded like an explosion, and the mountain of meat moved away from me, presumably to pick up his weapons. I rolled onto my good arm, and did my best to cough as much blood out of my throat as I could, just so I could breathe again.

"What manner of sorcery is this?" I heard him say. I couldn't really see anything. I certainly didn't expect him to get an answer from a very familiar voice.

"This ain't sorcery, simpleton!" Veronica said in a dissonantly cheerful voice. "This is us being big damn heroes!"

I forced myself to look up, but I could still barely see; my right eye had started to swell shut, and I couldn't open it. But I was able to see enough. The Legion gladiator was charging towards Veronica; she was practically dancing around him. Off in the distance I could hear familiar sounds: the discharge of ED-E's laser, the bellow of Cass' shotgun, and the thunderous boom of Boone's sniper rifle. All around I could hear men shouting and boots tromping against the ground.

"You little bitch!" I heard him yell after he swung and missed a second time. "Do you really think a woman can beat me, the mighty Otho?" He swung a third time, and missed yet again; Veronica had rolled underneath him, standing up behind him. Before he realized what was happening, she brought the mallet of her super-sledge up in between his legs.

"Lets both be girls then, how's that!" He howled in pain, but she didn't pay it any mind. She just reared the hydraulic sledgehammer back, and brought it down right in the middle of his back. He collapsed forward on his face, hitting the ground with enough force to shake the ground. Granted, the ground didn't shake nearly as much as a moment later when Veronica brought the massive mallet down a final time onto the back of his head, practically liquidizing it. There really wasn't a skull left, just a few jagged bits of metal and thin red paste that seemed to coat everything.

The whole time she'd been fighting him, I'd been trying (and failing) to get up. My face was still slowly leaking blood, and it was still very, very hard to breathe, but at least I wasn't coughing or vomiting all over myself anymore. Every time I tried to push myself onto my feet, my muscles refused, and I collapsed back into the pool of my own blood.

"Holy shit!" Veronica shouted out, rushing over to me. "Sheason! Shit, c'mon man, tell me you're still alive..." She reached down and grabbed (thankfully) my still functioning arm. I reached out, and did my best to hold onto her; she took the hint and helped me up.

"I had 'im on th' ropes..." I choked out, trying to ignore the trails of blood coming out of my face.

"I know you did. Now, we gotta get out of here! Arcade's waiting for us down at the docks."

We started moving. I tried to keep my eyes open, to keep conscious... but it was a losing battle. I'd already lost who knows how much blood. But despite the astronomical pain I was feeling, despite how weak I was, and despite the fact that I was probably almost dead... now that I was moving and no longer in immediate imminent danger, there was only one thing in my mind.

Melody.

I promised her I'd get her out.

And I keep my promises.

"Wh... we can't... can't leave yet..." I said to Veronica in between ragged breaths.

"Don't talk, Fisher, you're just in shock," she said, tightening her grip on me. "Cass! We gotta go!"

I heard another boom nearby, and looked up just in time to see Cass unloading her shotgun into a nearby Legionnaire. She still had Boone's rifle slung across her back.

"Take THAT y'misogynistic FUCK! Whadda ya think'a women now?"

"CASS!" Veronica shouted, and my ears started ringing again. "We gotta go!" Cass turned around, and all the color drained from her face when she saw me.

"Oh fuck, Sheason!" We all started moving to the exit, Cass covering us with her shotgun. She turned to Veronica and asked "Is he... I mean, he's not dead, is he?"

"I jus' got th' wind knocked outta me," I coughed again. "I'll b'fine... but we... we gotta find..."

"Shut up man, don't talk! Just... we'll get y'outta here, just shut up!" She started looking around frantically. "Where the fuck is Boone?"

I wasn't worried about Boone at that particular moment. What little part of my brain that was still functioning knew he could take care of himself. But Melody was still in the camp somewhere... and I couldn't get them to listen to me. I could barely speak, and my vision was clouding over badly again. Everything was starting to go dark. The indistinct sounds of chaos and gunfire filled my ears. I felt my head start to sag... and then a hand started slapping my face.

"Stay with me, Fisher!" I could barely hear Cass' voice now, even though part of my brain registered that she was close enough that I could feel her breath on my face. Or maybe I was just imagining it. "Don't you dare fuckin' die on me!"

"We... we gotta... Melody, she's..." My throat was starting to close up. It felt like we were going downhill, and it felt like the world was both moving around me at a million miles an hour and like my legs were caught in quicksand. I was forcing myself to think, but everything was just so...

"Boone!" I heard a voice that sounded like it was next to me and miles away at the same time. I think it was Veronica. "Eyes up soldier! We! Are! Leaving!" I heard another voice, much more distant.

"...ave a shot!" was all I could remember him saying.

There was a crack in the air like thunder.

And then everything went black.


	23. Chapter 22: Success and Failure

Chapter 22: Success and Failure

* * *

It was the middle of the night when I found myself walking along the streets of New Vegas. At least, I'm pretty sure it was New Vegas. I was walking past the Freeside sign, and off in the distance I could see the skyscrapers of all the casinos on the strip. But... something was wrong somehow. There was a subtle strangeness in the atmosphere permeating everything...

Was I asleep? Was this a dream? I mean, I couldn't quite recall how I got here. I didn't think this was a dream, though: for one thing, I never questioned a dream until after I'd already woken up. So why would I start now? Besides, this felt different than a dream. It was just incredibly hard to put my finger on just what was striking me as odd...

That was when it hit me like an alpha Deathclaw punching me in the face: there were no people. This was Las Vegas Boulevard, right in the middle of Freeside, and in the short time I'd been in Vegas, I'd never seen it empty at any time, day or night. So I kept walking, looking for any signs of life at all. What I found... didn't really qualify. It was the entrance to The Strip.

There weren't any Securitrons. There weren't any spotlights. The neon lights that previously announced "Welcome to The Strip" were missing. What I saw instead were dozens of flags and banners hanging off the wall: large, red flags, emblazoned with the image of a golden bull. The top of the wall was dotted with torches and fire pits. And right above the gate was a large bronze disk, emblazoned with the relief of Caesar in profile.

"What the hell?" I said out loud. I couldn't help myself.

"It's a damn shame, isn't it? The greatest city left in the world, and it's been reduced to scrap by an army of barbarians," The voice came out of nowhere and made me jump. I spun around, trying to find the source, and my eyes fell on the last person I ever expected to see again.

"Benny?!" I couldn't believe my eyes. But there he was, wearing his black and white checkered jacket and looking up at the city with his hands in his pockets. "How are... I mean... you're-"

"Dead?" He almost smirked as he took out a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket, grabbing one of the smokes with his mouth. "Yeah... It's impossible, isn't it? Talking to a dead guy. Well... unless, of course, the cat doing the talking is already dead himself. Don't you think that's interesting, Courier?"

A horrible sinking feeling materialized in the pit of my stomach. Benny just lit the cigarette in his mouth and took a long draw.

"No. No way. There's just no fucking way..." I couldn't bring myself to finish that thought.

"I have to admit, I expected to see you a lot sooner," he let out a puff of smoke. "Way I understand it, you bit the big one only a few days after I did. But here you arrive now, months gone by, having missed all the action.

"But this doesn't make sense!" I shouted. "How am I dead? How are you the only one here? Why are you being so civil to me? What the fuck is going on?!" Benny just sighed.

"Yeah... that's about what I thought. This is gonna take a while. Smoke?" He offered the open box of cigarettes to me, but I waved them away. He just shrugged and continued offering them to me. "It's not like they're gonna kill you a second time, dig?"

"Maybe later," I replied. He chuckled, and moved towards the front gate.

"C'mon Courier. Let's go for a walk."

The next thing I knew, Benny and I were walking along The Strip... or what was left of it. There were Legionnaires everywhere, and slaves in rags being led away in chains. The road was lined with heads on spikes and crosses. Some of the crosses had bodies tied or nailed to them; some... only had skeletons left. From afar, the casinos had looked mostly intact, but now that I saw them up close I realized that every building on The Strip looked like they'd been dropped in a warzone. There wasn't a single structure that didn't have hundreds of bullet holes or collapsed sections... except for the Lucky 38. Amazingly, that was the only building that looked relatively untouched.

"Alright, can you start explaining to me what the fuck is going on?" I said looking around. A group of Legionnaires passed us by, not even looking up. "And why is no one paying any attention to us?"

"God, but are you thick, aren't you?" Benny just chuckled as the two of us walked down the middle of The Strip. "What part of bein' dead don't you get, Courier? They're not paying attention to us, because they can't see us. They can't see us, because we no longer belong to the world of the living. As for what's going on, I thought it was obvious. The Legion's captured Vegas, and Caesar has turned it into his own personal Rome. You diggin' the vibe I'm laying down, daddy-o?"

"I..." My mind was trying its best to come to grips with this. It was a lot to take in, in a very short amount of time. "Do you know how I died, at least?"

"Massive internal bleeding. It didn't help that you had radiation poisoning from House's vault under the Fort." Benny took another draw from his cigarette, and tossed it aside. "At least, that's what it looked like on the ride back to Vegas. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know for sure. I'm sure Usanagi's here... somewhere. Damn near everyone else I knew in Vegas died when Caesar rolled into town. I've never run into her though."

"Radiation poisoning?" I couldn't help but sigh. "Not exactly the most dignified death I could've asked for. Did I at least get a proper burial?" When I said that, Benny laughed out loud, and took out another smoke.

"Yeah... you had a burial like mine." I thought about that for a second. And then my heart sank.

"I think I'll take one of those smokes now," I said with a grimace. He patted me on the shoulder, handing me the box of cigarettes.

"Sorry about that, kid, but your friends had bigger fish to fry, what with the Legion right on the tail of that hopped-up hot rod of yours. They couldn't worry about putting you in the ground when you finally bought it. The only one who stayed by your corpse was the robot, but the tin-can didn't exactly have any hands."

"So what happened to them?" As I asked, he offered his lighter and lit my cigarette. "My friends, I mean."

"Well..." Benny seemed to think for a minute before responding. "The robot didn't leave. He hovered around you, trying to protect your body 'til the Legion found him. It took them a while, but they eventually smashed him up. Cass... last I saw of her, she was driving that Corvega of yours West. Veronica went back to her bunker, and I haven't seen her since, but I doubt she survived. Hidden Valley was blown up a few weeks after the Legion took Vegas. And Boone, well, he staged a suicide mission against the Legion. Took out several hundred Legionaries before they finally caught him. They crucified him outside the Vegas walls. When Legate Lanius was going to compliment him for his 'reckless abandon,' Boone spat tobacco in his eye. I have to admit, though, Arcade's the one I feel the most sorry for."

"What do you mean? What happened to Arcade?" I felt like I was not going to like the answer. I was right.

"He was captured by the Legion a few weeks after you died. Apparently, Caesar made Arcade his personal physician, and spent the last few months 'speaking with him on philosophical matters.' I'm guessing that Caesar isn't as good a conversationalist as he thinks he is, because a few days ago, Arcade cut his own guts out with a scalpel and his bare hands. And wouldn't you know it, he was the only doctor in the Legion."

I felt ill. I couldn't rightly see how, given that I was already dead, so by all rights I shouldn't have been feeling anything. Then again, I've never been dead before, so I had no idea if feeling anything at all was supposed to be normal or not.

"How do you even know all this?" I asked, trying to force my brain to process everything and to force the bile back down my throat. The smoke was helping, oddly enough. I think the tobacco was calming me down. Part of me was wondering if Benny had rolled something else into those smokes.

"When you're dead, you have a lot of time to yourself. I've been wandering around the Mojave, trying to make sense of things. Watched you for a bit, till you died. Then I watched your friends. And then I watched the Legion take Vegas. Now hang on, we're almost here." I looked up at the building he'd brought us to.

"The Tops?" I was frankly amazed it was still standing. The top three floors (and many others besides) were collapsed, but most of the building was still standing. "What are we doing here?"

"I want to get a drink. And I figured you could use one too, Courier. So, we're heading up to my old office. It's high enough the Legion troops just leave it alone. Not that it really matters, since they can't see me, but hey, even though I'm dead I don't want to drink around those fucking savages, dig?"

"Can I ask something else?" Benny nodded as the two of us made our way through the lobby of the Tops. All the slot machines and blackjack tables were gone - and replaced with cages, full of slaves. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Say what, daddy-o?"

"Well... don't take this the wrong way," I took a draw from the smoke and let the poisons and carcinogens fill my lungs. "But I haven't exactly forgiven you for shooting me in the face that one time. And I can't imagine you're too pleased with me for beating you to death." He just shrugged.

"Hey man, that was just business, like I told you. It wasn't anything personal. I'm pretty sure that if I was in your shoes, I would've done the same thing."

"You kind of did."

"Yeah... I suppose," He shrugged as the two of us walked up the stairs towards the 13th floor. "And hell, it's not like it matters anyway. Still, it did kind of annoy me how House started grooming you to be the new number two after the big man had me dialed in.

"New number two?" I took another drag of the smoke. "The hell are you talking about?"

"You mean you didn't notice? House was pulling the same smoke and mirrors routine he pulled on me when he turned the Boot Riders into the Chairmen. When he realized I was working against him, he started looking for a new number two. And then you showed up on his doorstep."

"Really." I tried to keep my voice flat as the two of us made our way across the 13th floor to his office. But to be honest... Benny was starting to make sense. And that was scaring the _piss_ out of me.

"I'll be honest... I see a lot of myself in you, Courier. So did House, apparently."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Benny," I said as the two of us opened the doors to his office. This wasn't room 1337, where I'd found Yes Man - this room was different, and had windows looking out over The Strip. "But I don't see any similarity between the two of us."

"No?" Benny walked over to the bar near the window, and started pulling out glasses and bottles of alcohol. "You don't see any similarities, or do you just not _want_ to? Because I'll tell you what I see when I look at the two of us: I see a pair of failures."

"What, because we're both dead?" I sat down at the bar, and he handed me a glass of Old Royale Whiskey on the rocks. Benny just smirked, and started pouring himself a glass of scotch.

"You could say that. I mean, I failed in my attempt to free Vegas from House."

"Wait, what?" Benny downed his glass of scotch in one go and poured himself another. I just sort of stared at him dumbfounded for a minute. "What are you talking about, free Vegas?"

"What did you think I was doing when I stole the Platinum Chip? It certainly wasn't because I wanted to rule Vegas like House. You never got a chance to know the Overboss like I did, Courier, but he's the one with the hard-on for power and control. Everything was about the bottom line with him. Personally, I liked life when the Chairmen were still called the Boot Riders. Things were... simpler. I didn't have to put on an act and I didn't have to run things." Benny shrugged, and drank more of his scotch.

"Really?"

"Oh sure! I hated running things. It was all... money and business and... rules. I mean, yeah, there were perks, but..." he stared at his glass of scotch for a second, and then set it down and looked right at me. "Do you know the city I wanted to see when I stole the Platinum Chip?" I shook my head, and he continued. "I wanted to see a Vegas that was free. Free from the tyranny of House's Old World rule. Free from the bullshit and fake democracy of the NCR. Free from the slave chains of the Legion. I wanted to make a Vegas that was independent. No gods. No masters. Free."

I was dumbfounded. Was this the same man who shot me in the face? Surely not. There was just so much to take in all at once. The room was silent for a moment. He'd made his point, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. So I grabbed my glass of whiskey, and was about to take another drink... when I started to hear a strange _beeping_ sound.

"The hell is that _noise_?" I looked around, trying to find the source of the _beeping_. Benny looked at his left _wrist_, and I could see that the _watch_ he was wearing was, apparently, the _source_ of the noise.

"Damn," he said aloud, sighing. "I was hoping we'd have a bit more _time_. Ah well." He downed a third glass of _scotch_. I was getting really _confused_ now.

"More _time_? More _time_ for what?"

"More _time_ to talk," He put his hands in his _pockets_ and shrugged. "Let me _level_ with you for a second - I haven't been entirely _honest_ with you about something." This was _sounding_ more like the Benny who'd shot me in the face. Either way, the _beeping_ just got louder. "But it seems... we're _out of time. And now, I think, you need to wake up, Courier..."_

* * *

My eyes snapped open.

I wasn't in Benny's office in The Tops. Benny wasn't around. I was lying on my back, staring at a ceiling somewhere. The beeping was still going on. I looked to my right, and my eyes fell on a woman in a white lab coat.

"You woke up."

Perhaps a bad choice of inflection. Is she implying I could've just as easily not?

I rolled my head around, trying to take stock of my surroundings, and was immediately greeted by ED-E's speaker grille hovering right in front of me.

"Bout time yer crippled ass woke up," I heard Cass' voice from next to me. ED-E hovered backwards out of the way, and I could see everyone standing around me: Cass was sitting to the left of me, looking at me with a satisfied smirk. Veronica was behind her, Arcade was standing next to the woman with the white lab coat, and Boone was leaning up against the back wall with his arms folded across his chest. He wasn't wearing the armor and trenchcoat anymore, but I did see that same desert-camo sniper rifle slung across his back.

It took a few seconds, but I eventually figured out where I was. I was lying on one of the recovery beds in Dr. Usanagi's medical clinic, just east of Vegas (it was the same place I'd gotten the bullet taken out of my knee). I also figured out what that damn beeping noise was - there were several sensors stuck to my skin, hooked up to an EKG that was monitoring my heart rate. And, surprisingly enough, on my left wrist was my Pip-Boy.

"So..." I shifted in the bed, trying my damnedest to sit up. "What the hell happened?"

"You very nearly died, is what happened Mr. Fisher," Dr. Usanagi walked past Boone and into the room, clutching a clipboard.

"Oh," I suppose I must've sounded like a real dope, but now that I was getting my faculties back, I was starting to remember that yes, after all I'd been through, it made a certain amount of sense.

"I must say, I hadn't expected to see you back in my care so soon." I shifted uncomfortably in the bed and scratched the back of my head sheepishly.

"Yeah, I've been gettin' that a lot," For some reason I thought of Vulpes. I'm not entirely certain why. "So what all was wrong with me?"

"What _wasn't_ wrong with you would be a more pertinent question." The tiny Asian woman somehow was able to look both relieved and annoyed at the same time.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense, doc. C'mon, spill."

"Where to begin? For one thing, you were suffering from acute radiation poisoning when your friends brought you to me. Your body had to be flushed of the 257 rads you had absorbed before I could even attempt to diagnose any of your other ailments," I felt a twitch in the back of my mind. Hadn't Benny said something... She continued before I could think about it any more. "Eight of your ribs were cracked, there were shards of a broken 9mm round in your right collarbone, your right arm was broken in two places, all of the metacarpals and proximal phalanges in your right hand had been shattered, several of your organs including your stomach and your liver were badly hemorrhaging, your left lung was completely collapsed, and both the cornea and lens in your right eye had been damaged wholly beyond repair. Not to mention the dozens of cuts, lacerations, and bruises all over your body..." She removed her glasses and shook her head when she looked at me. "Speaking frankly, I've never seen **anyone** in such shit shape cling to life so stubbornly."

"I might have had a little something to do with that, I think..." I heard Arcade mutter just loud enough for us to hear him. Veronica nudged him in the ribs.

"Yeah, you helped stabilize him on the trip here. But putting the Pip-Boy back on his arm, that _probably_ helped. Just a bit." I wasn't really paying attention to the two of them going back and forth. I was just going over everything Usanagi said was wrong with me - how the fuck was I still alive?

"So... how long was I out?" I said when I finally was able to find the words.

"Only two days. I expected you to be under for a week and a half - at minimum - after the surgery. Usually it takes patients at least that long for their bodies to fully accept any bionics implanted into their system. The fact that you're even conscious so fast is absolutely stunning. You should be in a medical journal."

"Wait, hang on - implants?" My mind had latched onto that word and wouldn't let go. She merely nodded.

"Well yes, your body had sustained so much trauma that cybernetics were needed simply to fix you. I had to replace your collapsed lung with a synthetic one, your right eye had to be replaced with a bionic lens, I reinforced your ribcage with a NEMEAN sub-dermal armor weave, a PHOENIX Monocyte breeder..." She kept speaking, but her words started to mesh together. I tried to listen, but it was all a bit much to take in.

So. I was a cyborg now.

When the fuck did my life become so weird?

"...and finally, two nano-bionic weave implants to repair the structural damage your arms sustained. Your body should work better now than it ever has. Some of my best work, I must admit." There was something niggling me, however. And then the bottlecap dropped.

"Doc... how much is all this gonna cost?"

"All told? 64,430 caps." Every single person in the room - even ED-E - seemed to be staggered by that seemingly absurd number. Even I blanched a bit.

"Wh- y'never told us it'd be that much, doc!" Cass looked the most worried of all. She was probably worried that they'd all have to chip in to pay for my medical bills. I just composed myself, and shrugged.

"The amount of cybernetics you put in me, I thought it'd be more than that, honestly," I said. Dr. Usanagi just chuckled a bit.

"Well, to be honest, I did give you a bit of a discount - I haven't gotten the chance to perform surgery like that since my days in medical school, back at the Angel's Boneyard." When she said 'surgery' her eyes lit up with a strange sort of mania, that made me feel rather uncomfortable. I began to wonder what she looked like when I was under the knife... and promptly decided I was better off not knowing.

"So, here's a question - can I take this off and get my clothes back?" I sat up, and tapped at one of the sensors still stuck to my chest. "Waking up in a doctors office wearing nothing but my boxers has been a disturbingly regular occurrence lately."

"That all depends - do you have the caps to pay for your surgery, or are you going to have to owe me? Because those cybernetics keeping you alive are quite expensive."

"Yeah, I have the money in my car," and with that, I ripped the sensors off my chest. "You'll be able to accept NCR dollars, right? Caps take up more space than bills, and I'm pretty sure I have at least..." I thought about the conversion rate for a minute. "... $161,075 in NCR currency." Usanagi nodded, showing me where my shirt, my pants, my boots, and my leather jacket were being held.

As I was putting my pants on, I realized every one of my companions (except for ED-E) were just sort of staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Did..." Cass was looking at me like I had a tree growing out of my head. "Did y'jus' figure that math out in yer head jus' now? Th' fuck did y'do that?"

* * *

The group of us started walking out of Usanagi's clinic, towards where Cass had told me she'd parked my car. Since, apparently, she had been the one to drive us away from Cottonwood Cove.

"Alright," I said, fishing out my keys. "I think it's about time you guys tell me what the hell happened. Last thing I remember was Veronica liquidizing that gladiator's face."

"Yeah, it's not like we haven't heard about that for every hour since we escaped," Arcade said, sarcasm dripping off of every word.

"Hey, I had fun," Veronica shrugged. "Anywho, if you're looking for someone to thank for that in-the-nick-of-time rescue, look no further than the eyebot here." She patted ED-E's chassis, and the robot chirped happily. "If it wasn't for him, I don't think we would've gotten there in time."

"Speak fer yerself," Cass chimed in. "I was jus' 'bout t'grab a boat when ED-E showed up."

"I just wish that... thing... hadn't fired a laser at my feet. I was just about ready to shoot it! I thought it had finally blown a vacuum tube and was going berserk!" Arcade eyed ED-E warily, and I realized he was walking opposite the floating robot. Cass just slapped him on the back.

"Well, if you'd gotten on th' boat like th' rest of us..."

"Call me old fashioned," Arcade brushed Cass' hand off his shoulder. "But I'm not exactly a big fan of robots herding me towards _anything_."

"I think we're getting a bit off topic," Veronica said. "Basically, here's what happened - ED-E got us all on a raft, we hooked a chain to his underside, and he pulled us all the way upriver. That's about when Boone started shooting anything red."

"Not everything," he growled, just as we all got to my car.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked, unlocking the trunk and shoving most of the junk out of the way. I had to get to that secret compartment.

"Aw, he's just mad 'cause he missed," Cass said, trying hard to hold back a laugh. I just sort of stopped and stared at the stone-faced soldier with the sunglasses and red beret.

"Boone? Miss? Impossible." I shook it off, and finally cleared enough junk away to reach the secret compartment under the fake spare tire, unlocking it with both keys.

"He was right there!" He said through gritted teeth. "That bald, big-nosed bastard was right in my crosshairs, and I shot wide! I could've ended the whole damn war right then and there, but I missed, and that bastard is still alive!"

"Don't worry, Boone, I'm sure you'll get another chance." I opened up the cash box and started counting out the bills I'd need. If only the exchange rate wasn't so ridiculous...

"The fuck?!" Cass just sort of stared in disbelief as I started counting out hundreds. "I thought you said y'were a courier, man! Th' hell did y'get that sorta cash?" I just sort of shrugged.

"What can I say, business was good before I came to the Mojave. I never had to deal with casino bosses shooting me in the face, or shipments getting stolen by khans, or cowboy robots working for 200 year old megalomaniacs, and I most certainly never had to deal with massive slaver armies. Hell, the car cost at least four times these damn cybernetics." I pulled out the last bill, and shut the cash box, locking it again. "There, that should be enough."

"Wait a minute," Arcade leaned in while I put everything back in place. "I'm less interested in the cash and more interested in what you said earlier - about Boone getting another chance?" I nodded, shutting the trunk.

"Of course he'll get another chance. I left something at the Fort, and we have to go back," I said. Cass and Veronica both just chuckled.

"No you didn't," Veronica said with a smile, turning to Cass. "Do you want to tell him, or should I?"

"Tell me what?" I asked.

"Ya didn't really think we'd leave yer guns in that slave camp, didja?" Cass reached behind her, and pulled out both Roscoe and That gun, handing them to me grip first. "Between th' two of us, snatchin' those was easy. Caesar's lucky he still has a throne left. If we hadn't been in such a hurry t'leave, we'd 'ave snatched that too."

As grateful as I was to have my favorite pistols back, they weren't what I was concerned about. Now that I was up, and had finally regained my senses, all I could think about was the little girl... the scared little girl I'd promised and failed to save. I don't like breaking my promises.

"Thanks for the guns, but..." I hesitated, holstering both pistols and wondering how to proceed. I don't think they'd understand if I told them why I wanted to go back. "We still have to go back." Boone was the first to speak up.

"We can't."

"Why not?" I shot back at him. He merely shrugged.

"You remember that semi truck hanging off the edge of the Cottonwood Overlook?" Veronica interjected. I nodded, and she continued. "While you were heading upriver, Cass and I used your Pip Boy's Geiger counter to find out what it held: little over a hundred barrels of toxic, radioactive waste. Boone and I rigged the door with some explosives, and when we were making our escape, Boone shot it. By now, that whole area should be flooded with deadly radiation."

I just stared at her, realizing the implications. On the one hand, Caesar's Legion would need to find another way across the river... which was good. But... there was no way I would be able to get back to the Fort now. And no way I'd be able to make good on my promise to Melody. No way I could save her.

Benny's words from earlier rang in my ears, and I couldn't shake them out of my mind.

_"You don't see any similarities, or do you just not want to? Because I'll tell you what I see when I look at the two of us: I see a pair of failures."_


	24. Chapter 23: Cocktails and Hangovers

Chapter 23: Cocktails and Hangovers

* * *

_It's the Mr. New Vegas show, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas, and I've got a good feeling about every one of you listening tonight. Here are the headlines. Tensions between the Freeside locals and NCR squatters have been escalating in recent days. There have been several incidents of violence and injuries, but no deaths reported thus far. In other news, an anonymous source in the NCR reports that travelers should steer clear of Searchlight, due to large pockets of radiation. Travelers on the Nipton highway and highway 95 are advised to steer clear. More classics coming right up for you, so stay tuned._

* * *

Right below the button for the penthouse in the Lucky 38's elevator, there is a button labeled "cocktail lounge." Push it, and you will find yourself in a circular observation deck that, presumably, doubled as a restaurant before the war. The space has a bar surrounding the center, and empty tables fill all the available space. The floor slowly rotates, like a massive turntable. Giant floor to ceiling windows provide sweeping panoramic vistas of Vegas and the Mojave wasteland beyond the wall.

More important than anything else - at least to me - was the fact that the bar was stocked even better than the bar on the casino floor.

I was sitting at one of the tables, watching the landscape slowly move by the windows. Behind me, I could hear my friends talking and laughing and drinking and ED-E buzzing about the ceiling. I wasn't really paying attention. They needed time to decompress: every one of them, even Arcade, had stayed by me while I was recovering in Usanagi's clinic.

None of them had to stay, but they had. I should've been feeling a hell of a lot more grateful. I should've been happy that it seemed like they were all getting along, too. But my mind kept going back to Melody, and the promise I'd been unable to keep. So there I sat, nursing a rapidly diminishing bottle of whiskey.

It's not like this is the first time I've broken a promise to someone. Hell, it hadn't even been the first time I'd left someone to save my own skin - and unlike those times, I actually had the excuse that I was unconscious and dying at the time. That's a pretty good excuse to leave someone behind, don't you think? I kept trying to tell myself that if I hadn't been on the brink of death, I would've kept my promise to a scared, traumatized, and abused little ten year old girl. It should've been good enough for my own head, but...

By all accounts, I'm not a good man. I haven't lived a good life. I've tried. I feel like I've made an honest effort to be a decent human being. But the simple facts? I've killed people. I've broken promises, despite my insistence that I always keep my promises. I've left people behind to save my own skin. And worst of all, most of the people I've wronged in one way or another... I can't remember who they are anymore. Names, faces, places... they all run together, until they're nothing but indistinct shapes in my mind. Eventually, Melody's name and face would disappear as well, vanishing from my memory like a fading echo.

I tipped the bottle back, and emptied the last of the whiskey down the back of my throat. It didn't even burn anymore. By now, everything was numb. I had to stop thinking about this. I'd fucked up. But even drunk as I was, I realized that sitting around regretting the past wasn't going to change anything. I didn't want to forget, but I knew that I was never going to move forward if I kept clinging to the past.

Moving forward. At the end of the day, that was really the only thing that mattered in this blasted hell of a world. If you wanted to survive, you had to find a balance between learning from the past and not clinging to it.

And yet, despite that proclamation of moving forward, I still had plenty of drinking left to do tonight.

What can I say? I'm not made of stone.

On the way back from retrieving another bottle of whiskey from the bar, I'd forgotten that the outer edge of the restaurant floor moved. So when I went back to what I thought was the table where I'd been sitting, I found Boone. He was standing, his arms folded across his chest, in between a pair of tables and looking out one of the floor to ceiling windows.

"Boss," I heard him say as I approached. He didn't even turn his head.

"Hey Boone," I replied, walking to a space next to him. I caught a glimpse of his eyes behind his sunglasses, and they didn't look focused on anything. It was like he wasn't really seeing anything. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking," was all he said. I offered the bottle of whiskey, but he didn't pay it any attention. So I shrugged, and took a drink.

"About what?"

"What do you think?" he said softly. I was about to say 'Carla,' but before I got a chance to say anything, he cut me off with "Bitter Springs." Honestly, that felt kind of surprising. Or maybe I was surprised because I was slightly drunk.

"Do you think about Bitter Springs a lot?" I asked.

"Yeah. Always. Even when I sleep."

"You know," I took another drink of whiskey. "I'm still not entirely clear on what happened there."

"There was a..." Boone paused, and made a noise that wasn't quite a sigh. It almost sounded like he was exhaling gravel. "miscommunication."

"That's all? A miscommunication?"

"Yeah. Well. That's how they wrote it up in the report," Boone slowly shook his head, and leaned against one of the chairs; I leaned against the chair opposite, and he looked me in the face when he spoke next. At least, I think he looked me in the face - it was hard to tell with those damn glasses of his. "We did what we were there to do. Lot of people got killed. That's war. Maybe looking back you'd do things differently, but that's not how it works. In the field, you hesitate, you or someone you care about will die. They teach that from day one."

"Sounds like you have as many regrets as I do," I muttered into the whiskey bottle as I took another drink. Boone just nodded, and continued.

"What happened at Bitter Springs... Life has a way of punishing you for the mistakes you make. Big enough mistake, punishment can take a while," He looked back out the window, away from me. "Mine's not over."

"Maybe you can make up for your mistakes?" I tried to offer with a shrug. "I've... fucked up in the past. Some, more recently than others. But I can't stop moving forward because of it, and you shouldn't either." The part of my brain that wasn't completely drunk was insisting that I was just talking out of my ass. It didn't help that Boone was being as infuriatingly cryptic as ever, and I _still_ didn't really know what happened at Bitter Springs.

"A murderer who does good deeds is still a murderer," Boone said coldly. "And he'll still get his judgment. I left the NCR when my tour was up. Had enough of war. Decided I was going to let go. Begin again. None of it made a difference in the end."

"Maybe..." I tried to think of something to say, which is surprisingly hard when your stomach is drowning in whiskey. "Maybe it's just bad luck?" Boone snorted at that.

"That's what they tell you in the casinos, too. Because it's the only way to get you to buy back in. If people knew the truth, that someone's watching you, waiting to take it all away from you, and it never loses... That's all it's doing now. Waiting for me to buy back in."

The two of us sat in silence for a minute, watching the landscape roll past the windows. I took another swig of whiskey, and decided to break the silence.

"Maybe... you know, maybe it would... I don't know, maybe it would help to go back there?" I asked. Boone shook his head.

"I don't think so. It won't change anything. And that's a memory I don't want refreshed."

I didn't get a chance to say anything else to Boone. At that precise moment - although more specifically, the precise moment I was about to take another drink - a hand grasped me by the shoulder and yanked me violently away from my spot leaning against the chair. The entire room became a blur, and I tried to convince myself that only so much of it was from the whiskey.

"Sheason, c'mon! I got somethin' t'show ya!"

"Cass?" I asked as she dragged me along. The first thing I tried to focus on was the whiskey bottle, but that... didn't really... work. "What's goin' on? Where're you takin' me?"

"So, earlier I found a bottle'a tequila, right? So I challenged Arcade t'a drinkin' contest!" She said happily as she sat me down in a chair. When things finally came into focus, I was looking at an Arcade who was passed out face-down on the table with... three empty shot glasses next to his head. Sitting next to him was Veronica, looking at a piece of paper.

"So, three shots, and he's out?" I looked questioningly at Cass as she sat down next to me at the table. She nodded happily, pulling out her own bottle of whiskey and clinking the glass against mine. "Ok, that's interesting, I guess... is that all you wanted to show me?"

"Oh! No, not at all - see, after Arcade passed out, V and I got to talkin', and I showed her that map th' two of us found at th' caravan site!"

"I thought that piece of paper looked familiar," I said, taking a drink. "So, found anything interesting?"

"Well," Veronica put the paper down on the table, and pointed to the numbers at the bottom of the page. "I'm pretty sure these are GPS coordinates."

"GP what now?" You might think that was the booze talking, but I'll be honest - I had no idea what GPS was.

"Global Positioning System. Look, it's... technical stuff. The long and short of it, I was wondering if I could borrow your arm for a minute?"

"... what."

"I just want to take a look at your Pip Boy. Is that alright?" She smiled widely.

"Alright, I guess," I hesitantly offered my arm to Veronica, who grabbed hold of it, and nearly pulled me across the table as she started fiddling with the buttons and dials. "What do you need it for?"

"GPS is an old world mapping system, and since the maps on your Pip Boy are a mixture of archival data, information from old world satellites still in orbit, and real-time radar, if I put the number into the computer, it should... give us... a... location."

My Pip Boy beeped, and Veronica let go of my arm. So, I took another drink of whiskey, and looked at the map. Or, tried to, to be honest. Everything was all a bit fuzzy around the edges.

"Huh. Neat. So, I guess we have the location of the third caravan site. Cass, I promise we'll check it out... sometime soon, alright?"

"Sounds good!" She said with a smile and flushed cheeks. I'm not really sure she was paying attention. I looked over to the unconscious form of Arcade, slumped over the table. I gave him a couple of pokes. He didn't even stir.

"Man, he's really out've it, isn't he?" Cass chuckled, and took another swig of whiskey. "Pfft. Lightweight." I think I must have scrunched my face up or looked worried, because Veronica spoke up.

"Hey Shea, what's up?" She asked with her ever present faux-innocent curiosity.

"I'm just wondering..." I stopped looking at the immobile and unconscious form of Arcade, and looked right at Veronica before continuing. "Have you told him yet?"

"Told 'im what?" Cass asked. Veronica just shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Nnnnno? Not really," She scratched the back of her head. "I mean, not yet." Cass leaned across the table and looked between the two of us.

"Told 'im what?"

"I haven't exactly told Arcade that I'm a member of the Brotherhood yet, you know?"

"Th' longer you wait," I said, "th' worse it's going to be. Y'know that, right?" The liquor must have been really starting to affect me. I was starting to slur like Cass.

"Yeah, I know, I know... But in my defense, I don't really know anything about him either. Think about it - has he told any of us anything about himself?" I thought about that for a minute. Yeah, she did have a point, but I could tell she was just trying to shift the blame.

"That's just an excuse, and you know it. You being a member of the Brotherhood - and more important than that, keeping it a secret - that kind of thing could be potentially dangerous."

Cass and Veronica looked at each other with eyebrows raised, and then back at me.

"You're going to have to explain that, because I don't quite know what you're getting at."

"Yeah," Cass asked, taking another drink from her swiftly draining whiskey bottle. "I'm not sure'a yer meanin' either."

"Alright, let me give you a little anecdote to show you what I mean. So... about, I dunno, 16 years ago, maybe? I think. Anyway, I was making my way back to California from a few months that I'd spent in Montana, and I got a little... sidetracked. I ended up near The Core."

"Th' Core?" Cass asked.

"Isn't that what they call Seattle now?" Veronica asked. I nodded, and she just chuckled. "That's a hell of a detour."

"Yeah, it was a weird couple of months, you know? Anyways, I was completely flat-ass broke, so while I was there I ended up doing a couple of jobs with another wastelander, a Vault dweller, a super mutant, a robot, and a medic from the NCR." Both Veronica and Cass looked at each other, and started to smirk. "What?"

"Is this just something you do, then?" Veronica tried to hold back a laugh.

"Find people in th' wasteland, an' convince 'em t'do random crap with ya?" Cass finished her sentence.

"Hey, I needed some money fast, you know? Look, the point is, I pulled a few jobs with the Vault dweller and the mutant first, and we ended up getting a bounty put on our heads."

"Should we bother askin' what ya did?" Cass crossed her fingers under her head and rested her chin on top of them. She smiled like a gecko that'd just caught a radroach.

"It wasn't what I did - honest! The Vault dweller, Tom? He downloaded this one file onto his Pip Boy that set off alerts everywhere... and the mutant, he kind of... well, he tore the head off a slaver captain. It pissed them off somethin' fierce, y'know? Those two things, they kind of painted targets on our backs, and we had a lot of people after our heads."

"What does this have to do with me being in the Brotherhood?"

"When we met up with the wastelander, the robot, and the doc, we didn't tell them about the bounty. And then, when the slavers and the bounty hunters came after us, those three got caught up in it. It caused a lot of problems, and eventually we were forced to tell them what was going on. The point is, every secret comes out eventually. It's better to get it out in the open, before it gets it becomes a real problem."

* * *

For the first time since I came to Vegas, I woke up without having to deal with nightmares from the night before. On the downside, my head throbbed like mad, every light source in the room felt like daggers trying to stab through my eyes, and the slightest rustling sound felt like a jackhammer in my ears.

I do not enjoy being hungover.

It took me quite a while to get going. Thankfully, Veronica was already up by the time I wandered into the kitchen, and she had a batch of her hangover cure all ready for me. Then again, I had a bit of a late morning, so I guess it made sense that she'd be up.

By the time I decided to go see Mr. House, it was close to noon.

"Well, howdy there pardner!" Victor said to me as the elevator door to House's office opened. "You're looking healthy as a blue-ribbon stallion on race day."

"No, Victor. I look like what I am - someone who has a massive hangover," I drank a little water to finish washing the taste of Veronica's cure out of my mouth. "Is House available, or is he too busy micromanaging Vegas to see me?"

"Actually, Mr. House has been waitin' for you, pardner. Go right on in."

So I walked down the stairs, and before I even reached the final step, the big monitor flickered into life and House's face came into view.

"Hello, Mr. Fisher. I must admit, I expected you to arrive much sooner. When I spoke to you under the Fort, it was Monday. It is now Friday." He sounded rather annoyed with me. Good, I thought, let him be annoyed for a while.

"Yeah," I grumbled, taking another drink of water. "I ran into a little trouble with the locals. I spent the last few days laid up in the hospital. By the way - thanks for warning me about the radiation in the vault. I really appreciated the heads up."

"Radiation... hmm..." Amazingly, House was silent for a few seconds. "Yes... a reactor leak would account for the bunker's lack of power." House's reaction was annoying, but I'll be honest... not unexpected. He continued before I had a chance to complain. "Either way, the foundation is now laid, Mr. Fisher. My Securitrons on the Strip are upgraded, and those at the Fort, ready for action. Now it's just a matter of adjusting the attitudes of some lesser groups while we wait for Caesar's Legion to attack Hoover Dam."

I held up my hand to try and stop him talking. "Hang on, House. I have a question." Something from my hallucination about Benny from a day or so ago was niggling the back of my head, and it wouldn't be satisfied until I got an answer.

"Go ahead and ask, then."

"Say you keep control of New Vegas. What'll happen then?" I heard House chuckle softly.

"You think Vegas is merely a city, don't you, Mr. Fisher?"

"Well... yeah," What was he getting at?

"New Vegas is more than a city. Vegas will be the remedy to mankind's derailment. The city's economy is a blast furnace in which can be forged the steel of a new rail line, running straight to a new horizon." Impressive imagery, if you were into that sort of thing.

"And I suppose the NCR doesn't fit in with your grand vision, does it?" I asked.

"Oh, to the contrary. The NCR is vitally important. Because, what is the NCR? A society of people desperate to experience comfort, ease, luxury... The NCR is a society of customers. With all that money pouring in? Give me twenty years, and I'll reignite the high technology development sectors. Fifty years, and I'll have people in orbit. One hundred years, and my colony ships will be heading for the stars, to search for planets unpolluted by the wrath and folly of a bygone generation." Again, impressive imagery. And it was a noble idea, but there was still something bugging me.

"In the meantime, I suppose you'd rule Vegas as some kind of dictator then?"

"I prefer the tern 'Autocrat.' I would rule Vegas as a chief executive. But unlike a CEO of the old world, I would not answer to a board of directors or any other entity. Nothing to impede the progress of Humanity - or my own," He paused, apparently to let that sink in, then finished his thought with : "If you wish to see the fate of democracies, merely take a look out the windows."

"What's to keep you from abusing your power then?"

"My judgment," he said quite forcefully. "I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine God messiah. I am impervious to such ambitions," said the man who has spent the last two hundred years playing God for Vegas. "But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Oh yes... that is the Vegas I see. And that is what Vegas shall have. Now," House cleared his throat. "Are you quite finished asking puerile questions, or shall we discuss business?"

"Alright, fine," I took another drink of water. "So, what's the next step?"

"Outside New Vegas, at what was once called Nellis Air Force Base, resides an unusual tribe known as the Boomers. They are, shall we say, aggressively reclusive? They occupied Nellis a little over fifty years ago. One of my roving Securitrons recorded some video of their arrival - and then... exploded."

"Is that why they're called the Boomers then?" I asked. House continued, ignoring me.

"Odds are, they were Vault dwellers. Other than that, all I know is that they have several howitzers they fire at anyone who dares approach the base. Artillery of this sort has a range of several miles. If it's going to fire on Hoover Dam, I want it firing at my targets. If not, then I want to make sure that the Boomers don't sign similar treaties to fire their guns in support of the NCR or Caesar's Legion."

Frankly, I didn't want any part of this. I had just recovered from getting my ass kicked trying to complete one of House's jobs, and wasn't in the mood to get my ass blown apart by artillery. I was quite partial to my ass, thank you.

"Ok, House," I said, giving him a thumbs up. "Whatever you say. I'll get right on that."

* * *

"So, what did House want?" Veronica asked when I came back down from the Penthouse. I just shrugged.

"Oh, you know. Normal stuff. Nothing to get worried about" I shoved my hands in my pockets. "I'm feeling a bit peckish. Who wants to get lunch?"

* * *

"So, Arcade," I turned around in my seat as I creeped the Corvega out of the Lucky 38's garage and onto Las Vegas Boulevard. Cass was sitting shotgun, and Veronica was sitting next to Arcade. Boone had turned down the offer of lunch with the rest of us. "Where is this place again?"

"It's... it's just down the road. I think it's called Bill's, or Biff's, or something." Arcade clutched his forehead.

"Where'r we goin' again?" Cass asked.

"It's an all day buffet. More expensive than most locals in Freeside can afford, but they make great gecko meat omelets. Good for...uh... good for..." he trailed off.

"Curing hangovers?" Veronica offered playfully, poking him in the side of the head.

"Exactly," he grumbled and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses.

"I still can't b'lieve three shots'a tequila knocked y'on yer ass," Cass laughed.

"I can't believe I agreed to a drinking contest with you," Arcaded chuckled grimly. "What on earth was I thinking, going up against a girl with whiskey flowing through her veins instead of blood?"

"Damn right," Cass smiled proudly, blinked a few times, and her smile evaporated. "Hey, wait a minute..."

"I think we're here," I said, pulling the car to a stop in front of one of the buildings on the west side of the street. As it turned out, Arcade was wrong about the name completely - the sign above the door looked like it had been there since the bombs fell, and said "Buck's Steak House." Beneath it was a smaller sign made out of corrugated metal and riveted to the brick wall, with "All Day Buffet" scrawled on it in white paint.

"Yeah..." Arcade grunted, getting out of the car. "Yeah, this is the place." As we all exited the Corvega, ED-E zoomed down to eye level and beeped at me a few times.

"Hey buddy. D'you mind watching the car while we get some grub?" ED-E responded with a few happy beeps, and started circling above the car. I gave him a satisfied nod, and turned around to face three men making their way through the crowd towards me. They were all young men, with black hair that looked styled somehow. The one in the front wore a black leather jacket and a white shirt with jeans, while the other two didn't have a jacket. I rested my hand close to Roscoe... just in case.

"Hey man," the one in front gave me a smile, but I didn't ease up. "You the Courier?" I raised an eyebrow at him, and I felt rather than saw my friends move to defensive positions behind me.

"Maybe. Who's asking?"

"We're part of The Kings," He said, motioning to his buddies beside him. "Our boss, The King? Yeah, he wants to see you, man."

"And why does The King want to see me?" I asked.

"Hey man, I don't ask questions when the big man gives me an order, you know? All I know is, The King says 'Vince' - that's me - 'take Jimmy and Clint' - that's these jokers - 'and find me The Courier.' Word on the street is, The Courier drives a blue Corvega. And you just happen to be drivin' a blue Corvega." I nodded and crossed my hands over my chest.

"Alright, so. The King wants to see me. Mind if my friends and I get some food first?"

"Sure, man, sure. Go get some grub," He motioned for Jimmy and Clint to move out of the way, and group of us started walking towards Buck's. Before we had gone too far, Vince spoke up again. "Don't keep The King waitin'. He's a nice guy, but he ain't too patient."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said. Just as the lot of us were about to head inside, I heard one of the King's behind us give a wolf whistle as Cass passed him. She just chuckled.

"Ain't nothin' but a hound dog," was all I heard her say.


	25. Chapter 24: Hail to the King, Baby

**Chapter 24: Hail to The King, Baby**

* * *

_Welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas Show. Got some news for you this afternoon. Travelers are still advised to stay away from the stretch of the Long 15 between Goodsprings and South Vegas. According to reports from Sloan, there is still a heavy deathclaw presence in the area. In other news, the town of Bonnie Springs has gone silent. Traders from the small town haven't been seen in several weeks, and it's believed to have been wiped out by raiders. This, however, remains unconfirmed. The news this hour has been brought to you by the Vikki and Vance Casino: be our partners in crime. Coming up next is a classic from the Slim Gaillard Quartette, so pull up a glass and I'll pour you that "Atomic Cocktail."_

* * *

When I pulled the Corvega to a stop in front of "The Kings School of Impersonation," there was only one thought running through my mind as I stared at the giant neon sign, with the outlines of a guitar and the moving neon silhouette of a man dancing and swaying his hips:

"Man. Someone sure likes the color pink." And it was true. The sign, the dancing man silhouette, everything except the guitar was lit up with a bright neon pink. It really stood in stark contrast with the squat, four-story brick building, and the tough guys in jeans, leather jackets and greased up hair gathered all around the outside.

As the four of us got out of the car, I heard a couple of the Kings whistle, and yell out stuff like "Hey hey, lookin' good red!" Cass just let out a huge groan and rubbed her temple.

"I swear," Cass looked about ready to go for her shotgun. "Next fucker t'whistle at me's gettin my boot up 'is ass!"

"Didn't you say you thought it was cute, like, half an hour ago?" Veronica asked, giving ED-E a pat as the flying metal ball hovered down close to the car.

"Well, yeah, I thought t'was funny th' first time, but ev'ry one'a those assholes've been catcallin' me. Now, it's just gettin' old."

The four of us walked inside, and I couldn't help but notice all the posters hanging on the walls. Most of them were cracked and faded, but I could make out a few details. For one thing, they all seemed to center around the same man. I read the titles on a few: "King Creole," "Jailhouse Rock," "G.I. Blues," "Viva Las Vegas," and "Flaming Star" were the most legible, but there were others that I just couldn't read. And then I realized – all the Kings were wearing outfits that looked like they'd been copied straight from the posters.

In the center of the room was a dirty counter, and behind it was a glass case hanging off the wall. Inside the case was, quite possibly, the tackiest outfit I've ever seen. It was a white jumpsuit with a massive popped collar, covered in rhinestones, with tassels on the arms and legs, and a white cape with a red lining draped over one of the shoulders. Right above the outfit in the case was a pair of massive mirrored shades.

To the left of the counter was a door. Leaning on the wall next to it was a heavyset guy with greasy black hair, his arms folded across his chest chewing on a toothpick. He was wearing a pair of black pants, a black jacket with the numbers 6240 stenciled over the left pocket, and a black and white striped shirt underneath. It made him look like the character from the "Jailhouse Rock" poster... only a bit fatter. When we walked in the room, he looked up questioningly, and removed the toothpick from his mouth.

"Well, what do we have here?" He didn't sound like he was from around here - he spoke with an odd sort of slow drawl I'd only ever heard in Old World holotapes. "Another petitioner for the King?" I nodded.

"I suppose you could say that. I'm just here to see him."

"Is that right?" He looked from me to Cass, to Arcade, to Veronica, and back to me again. "I suppose it might be possible for you to meet him. How much is it worth to you to meet the big man?"

"How much?" Veronica spoke up. "What for? He got-" I held my hand up to stop Veronica. I knew what this guy's game was.

"I'm new in town," I told him. "I just wanted to meet The King, and pay my respects." The heavyset guy looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and then chuckled.

"You know what? I like you. Half the people around here, they forget who runs this place." He reached behind him, and opened the door. "Head on through, the door at the end of the hallway's the theater. The King's the bored-looking guy by the stage. Can't fuckin' miss him."

As we all walked down the hallway, Cass slid up beside me and grabbed a hold of my shoulder.

"How th' fuck d'you do that?" she asked. I just sort of stopped and blinked at her for a few seconds.

"Do what?"

"How'd y'know what t'say? One minute, he's bein' all pissy, next minute he's fuckin' lickin' yer boots." I shrugged.

"You've never had to deal with gangs before, have you?" I asked her.

"Raider gangs, mostly. Why? What's that got t'do with anythin'?"

"I've run some delivery jobs for at least half a dozen gangs in the past, and the one thing I've noticed about all of them is they want respect more than anything else. More than caps, more than sex, more than violence – even raider gangs want respect, in their own twisted way. Show a gang respect, they're much more willing to work with you."

* * *

The door at the end of the hallway opened up onto a surprisingly large theater. On the stage at the far end of the room was one of the Kings, microphone in hand. He was standing in the middle of several colored spotlights and shaking his hips just like the neon signs on the front of the building. I could barely hear some instrumental music playing over the rusty speakers on either end of the stage, and it sounded like he was singing some old world song to go along with the music.

All around the room were tables and chairs, like the sort you'd find in a cocktail lounge. For some reason, I immediately thought of the Shark Club in New Reno. Every single table was empty, except for one table near the stage that only had one occupant. He was sitting with his back to me, scratching the ear of the German Shepherd curled up next to him. I couldn't see his face, but I could see that he had fairly dark hair, a cream colored jacket, and black slacks.

"Excuse me. Are you the King?" I asked when I finally got close to him. He turned in his chair, and I did a double take. He was the spitting image of the man in those posters I'd seen. Literally, his face was exactly the same – it was uncanny.

"Look Rexie," the King said in that same old world drawl. "Someone new's come to see us. Poor boy. He hasn't been feeling well lately." He gave his dog a scratch behind the ears, and I suddenly realized that the dog's brain was visible from behind a glass dome, and quite a bit of the dog was replaced with metal. He turned back to me, shook my hand, and gestured at one of the chairs. "Yeah, I'm the King. Have a seat. Danny up there's just finishing 'Hard Headed Woman.' What can I do for you?"

"Well, I'm not really sure," I said, pulling up a chair. "I'm Sheason Fisher. I was just going to get lunch with my friends here, when a couple Kings came up, said you wanted to see me."

"Did I?" He cocked an eyebrow and looked confused for a minute. "I don't recall asking for a Sheason."

"Well, they were looking for The Courier," I shrugged. "And I suppose if that's what people are calling me now, I guess I'll have to live with it." The King looked back at me with a sudden dawning comprehension.

"Ah, so you're The Courier. I've heard about you. You do look like you can handle yourself, just like people have been saying. I have to admit though, I was expecting someone a bit… taller." Immediately, I thought of my rather unpleasant meeting with Caesar.

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot." I scratched the back of my head, which had suddenly started aching at the memory of Vulpes whacking me in the back of the skull. "So, why'd you want to see me?"

"I got a job for you," he said, leaning back in his chair, giving me a good view of his light blue collared shirt with the top three buttons unbuttoned. "But first, I have to see if you're as dependable as people are saying. Interested?"

"I'm listening," I said. I still needed a good distraction from all the harrowing putting-my-ass-on-the-line for House, and this might just fit the bill.

"I'll start you off with something easy. If you're as good as they're saying, this should be a walk in the park," I looked back at my friends; while The King and I were talking, they'd all sat down and started watching the show. "Did you notice the bodyguards for hire near the gates when you entered Freeside?" I thought for a minute, and then shook my head.

"No, I must've missed them. Then again, I did roll into town in my Corvega, so that's probably not surprising, I guess." The King chuckled.

"It's good money if you can stay alive long enough. Freeside's not nearly as safe as it used to be, especially these last few months, so the money is well earned. Well… usually well earned, that is." He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, and laced his fingers together. "Recently my men have been telling me about one of these bodyguards – a man by the name of Orris – is making a little too much money."

"How much is too much?" I asked. I was trying to figure out why The King had a problem with this guy. So he was making some money? Good on him. So what?

"Too much," he said simply. "He's making a killing in repeat business. Once someone hires him, they never want anyone else. I want you to find out why," he said, pointing at me for emphasis. "Specifically, I want you to hire him. Play the part of an innocent tourist and follow his lead. If nothing happens, so be it. But I'm guessing things won't go smoothly. Call it a hunch."

"Why are you so interested in this?"

"Some of those guards out there are Kings. I'm just looking out for my men. Don't get me wrong – I'm not trying to get some kind of unfair advantage. I just want a level playing field for my boys." It was a noble enough sentiment, and… strangely enough, believable. Something about the way this man carried himself, something about how he spoke, I could tell – he was actually being honest.

"So, what's so special about me then, that you ask for me to handle this?"

"It's like I said before, I got another job for you – a real job – but only once I find out if there's anything to the stories about you. This is just a warm up. Besides, I can't send my boys to look into this. I've tried, but he can smell a King a mile away. Probably knows all our faces by now. He's not stupid, I'll give him that. So that's why I need someone he won't recognize, and that makes you damn near perfect. So, what do you say?"

"Could be a laugh," I smirked. "Yeah, sure. Where can I find this guy?"

"The last I heard from my men, he's up by the North gate to Freeside, over by Genaro's Diner. Oh, and here," From underneath his chair, he pulled out a bag of bottlecaps – easily 200 or so. "That should cover the cost of hiring him."

"Alright then," I took the bottlecaps and got up. "This shouldn't take too long. I'll tell you what's up when I get back." The King just nodded, and leaned back in his chair again.

"Thank you, thank you very much."

* * *

"Alright, run this by me again?" Arcade asked as we all made our way back to the car.

"The King wants me to find out why this guy Orris is making so much money. To do that, I need to look like a 'helpless tourist," I made finger quotes in the air. "So, I'm letting you guys have the car for the afternoon."

"Y'sure?" Cass asked, twirling the keys around her finger, and smirked at me. "I mean, y'remember what happened last time y'thought you could handle yerself. I wouldn't blame you if ya didn't, ya did get hit in th' head pretty hard."

"Not to mention you lost a lot of blood," Veronica added helpfully.

"Broke a couple limbs…" Cass added, nudging Veronica in the ribs.

"Had your organs melted by radiation…" Veronica smiled back at her.

"Not to mention you made us waste a couple of days, waiting for you to get better." Arcade folded his arms across his chest and nodded. "Personally, I don't want to waste another half a week waiting for you to get mended if you decide to get banged up again."

"Yes, yes, very funny," I scowled at everyone except ED-E. "Are you all quite finished?"

"I think I got a couple more," Veronica smirked, and drummed her fingers on the Corvega's roof.

"Look, I'll be fine. The worst I'll have to deal with here in Freeside is some idiot trying to mug me. It won't be like trying to sneak into the most heavily defended slaver stronghold in the wasteland. So take the car, don't wreck it, enjoy yourselves for the afternoon, and we'll all meet up back at the 38 close to sundown. Alright?"

"Sounds like a plan," Cass patted the hood a couple times and got in the driver seat. "See ya t'night then!" Veronica got in the passenger seat, and, predictably, Arcade got in the back. As they drove off, ED-E hovered beside me, emitting a soft mechanical whir.

"So, what do you say little buddy?" I turned to the floating eyebot, and he swiveled in the air so his speaker grille faced me. "Think you can be my guardian angel eye in the sky for a few hours?"

ED-E responded by letting out a burst of triumphant marching music, and zooming off into the sky directly above my head.

* * *

Freeside's North gate was maybe two or three blocks away from the Old Mormon Fort. On the East side of Las Vegas Boulevard was a diner that looked like it might have been a train car if not for the lack of wheels, the fact that every window was broken, and the sign on the top that said "Genaro's Diner" in mismatched neon lights. On the opposite side of the street was a building with an awning that looked like it had been sewn out of whatever cloth the residents could find, and a sign that read "BODYGUARDS 4 HIRE."

There were a fair amount of people on the street, but not enough that I really needed to push my way through. Eventually, I came to a stop under the awning, where about half a dozen tough-looking guys were gathered around a table, playing caravan, presumably. It didn't look like any of them were Kings, but I did hear some old world music coming from inside the building. Most of them didn't even look up from their game when I walked toward them.

"Hey, do any of you know where I can find Orris?" I asked. Most of them groaned, and I heard one of them say "Oh, God damnit," under his breath. A man with shaggy black hair, a messy goatee, slightly sunburned skin, and metal armor set his cards facedown on the table, and stepped up.

"Guess we'll have to finish this game some other time, boys. Sounds like someone else has heard about how awesome I am." The guy with the ammo bandolier who was sitting next to him just scoffed and shook his head.

"You know man, this is getting too convenient. Why do they always come 'round askin' for you right when yer about to lose?"

"Hey, it's not my fault my excellent skills are in such high demand," Orris said, brushing some dirt off his shoulder and finally turning to face me. "Hey there. I'm Orris. If you're looking to cross Freeside, no one will keep you safer than I will."

"Yeah, I heard you were pretty good. But why do I need a bodyguard crossing Freeside?" I didn't want to seem too eager. Besides, I was kind of interested in his sales pitch. So far, I wasn't really impressed.

"Just look around man. People here in Freeside? They're as likely to stab you as say hello," he cocked his head to the side, and looked as his nails, presumably in an attempt to look nonchalant. "That is, if I weren't at your side." He looked down, and I saw his eyes lock onto my Pip Boy. "Oh, so you're a Vault dweller, eh? You don't look like you're from Vault 21."

"Nah, I'm from out of town. Vault 13," I said, thinking quickly. Honestly, I didn't know anything about that Vault, except that it was one of the two Vault's close to Shady Sands. I figured it was as good a story as any. "I heard about Vegas, so I decided to hitch a ride and come see what's what. So, how much is it to hire you?"

"Two hundred caps get you my watchful eye for a trip down to the south gate," he said with well practiced precision.

"South gate? What, you mean the Strip?" I asked. "What if that's not where I want to go?" He just rolled his eyes.

"Sorry pal, but all the people with any real money head for the Strip, so that's the way I go. You want to go somewhere else, hire one of these losers," he jabbed a thumb behind him, and I heard the group still playing cards grumble and moan. Obviously, they'd heard that line one too many times before.

"Fair enough, I guess," I nodded, and reached into my jacket, pulling out the bag of 200 caps. I paused to make it look like I was counting them out before handing him the bottlecaps. He took it without question and put it in a compartment on the left thigh of his metal armor.

"Done and done," Orris said, slapping me on the back and maneuvering me away from the card game. As we walked, he seemed to drop the genial demeanor and get slightly serious. "I want to mention a few things up front. In order to ensure your safety, I need you to follow my instructions to the letter. We'll be heading down the main street here the whole way down. No detours. You go off sightseeing and I go off to find another customer. I keep a brisk pace, so try not to fall behind. Understand the rules?"

"Oh yes, absolutely," I did my best to sound genuine, but something fishy was going on, I could tell. Best to play along, see where this leads.

"Good. Then let's head out."

* * *

Brisk pace my ass.

When we finally got going, I damn near jogged right past him. It looked like he was running as fast as he could, and I really had to slow myself up just so he didn't get suspicious. From the look of it, the reason he was running so slow was the armor he was wearing. If you've never seen the kind of metal armor people wear in the wasteland, the most important thing is this: nine times out of ten, it's made out of bits of rusted old motorcycles. That's… all that needs to be said, really.

Personally, I've never really liked wearing too much armor. I know that may seem crazy, since I've always seemed to run into some kind of dangerous situation in the wasteland, but I have method to my madness. Sure, if you wear armor, you're less likely to get injured if somebody shoots you, but the tradeoff is the weight makes you heavier, and a lot slower. I'd much rather be able to run from a fight that's gone tits up than be forced to stay and slug it out.

So he was jogging along at only slightly faster than walking pace, and I was doing my best not to laugh when he started talking about some of the sights. Going on about how you can get patched up at the Old Mormon Fort, oh but he's never needed their services. Nope, no sir. Or how Fremont street is the fun part of town, and how "you haven't seen Freeside till you've been to the Wrangler."

I started to think that the King was worried for nothing – maybe some of the more naïve people visiting Vegas were actually taken in by his boasting as self-congratulation, and that's why he was getting so much repeat business.

And that's when he came to a stop in the middle of the street.

"What's going on? What's the problem?" I asked. I looked around – we were close to Buck's Steak House, and pretty close to the gate to The Strip. He drew his pistol – a practically pristine hunting revolver, complete with a ridiculously oversized scope mounted on the top.

"I don't like the look of some of those men ahead," he motioned at a group of four men in the crowd ahead of us. Unlike everyone else, they were standing still, and not even hiding the fact that they were staring right at us. "Let's take a different way around."

Without even waiting for me to respond, he took off and ran to his left down a side street. This time I really did have to run to keep up. He turned a corner, kept running, and before I could catch up to him completely, I heard him fire off three shots. When I finally got close to him, he was blowing smoke away from the barrel of his revolver.

"Thought you could ambush the great and powerful Orris, did you?" he said as he holstered his pistol and turned to face me. He seemed a little surprised that I wasn't further back, but very quickly regained his composure and smirked cockily at me. "Nothing to worry about. If you had hired one of those other hacks, you'd be up to your ass in lowlife right now!"

I looked past him to see what he had been shooting at: lying on the ground and clustered around the rusted hulk of an abandoned car were the four men that he'd been trying to avoid before. It didn't take a genius to realize what was wrong about this situation.

"So three shots take out four bad guys, does it?" I asked with a smirk. Orris blanched and his smile faded momentarily.

"Er… noticed that, did you?" He cleared his throat. "I… _keenly_ aimed one of the shots through some soft tissue of one of them to hit the man behind him. I'm just that good."

The two of us were standing a good ten, fifteen feet away from the four "bodies," and even from this distance I could make out the rise and fall of their chests as they continued to breathe.

"Or it could be that you just set up this whole thing to drum up repeat business. That seems a lot more likely, don't you think?" Orris just scowled from underneath his bushy eyebrows.

"That's an interesting **theory** you've got there," he said, putting a little emphasis on the word. "But you don't have any proof, so I'd suggest you keep it to yourself. Now, let's get moving." He turned and started walking away from me, but I just stood still.

"You know," I said loud enough for him to hear before he got too far. "I could probably make it to the Kings from here." He stopped dead in his tracks. "I'm sure The King would be _very_ interested in hearing about this…" He turned around and stormed up towards me.

"I ought to take my chances and kill you right here -" is all he managed to say. Before he could go any further, I reached behind me and drew That Gun before he could go for his own revolver and pointed it at his forehead.

"You were saying?"

"Ok, so you figured it out. Good for you. But you're still gonna have a hard time running to The King when my boys and I break your legs." He did his best to sound tough, but I could tell he was straining to keep his voice from wavering. I just continued to smile at him, and nodded once. In a flash I pulled out Roscoe with my free hand and fired off a shot behind him before he could react. I'll admit, what happened next was rather amusing.

"FUCK!" I heard one of the men lying on the ground shout. He was probably the one I'd aimed closest to. I didn't want to kill them; I just wanted to scare them a bit. "Man, fuck this! You ain't payin' us enough for this shit!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the four thugs get up and start running away. Orris didn't look behind him, but I saw one of his eyes twitch.

"So… what now?" he asked. "Are… are you gonna kill me?"

"Only if I have to," I said calmly, still keeping That Gun pointed between his eyes. "I'll probably feel like shit about it for, oh, _hours_, at least, being forced to kill a man with blanks in his gun." His eye twitched again. "But I'll tell you what. I feel sorry for you, so I'm gonna let you go. My suggestion is that you get out of town though. I'm pretty sure The King isn't gonna be happy if you stay." He just nodded, but stayed still. "Well, go on, get out of here."

I put That Gun away, but kept Roscoe drawn, just in case he tried anything. He didn't. I was actually quite pleased with myself – not only had I not gotten injured, but I was able to defuse the whole situation without actually killing anybody! I watched him as he just started running off down the street like a scared puppy with his tail between his legs.

He didn't get far.

Before I knew what was happening, I heard a boom in the air like some kind of old world explosion, and a beam of bright blue light lanced through the air from the roof of a nearby building. It sheared him clean in half. Instinct took over. I steadied Roscoe with my other hand and started scanning the rooftops, eyes down the pistol's sights, trying to see where the shot had come from.

I heard a burst of triumphant marching music from behind me, and felt a gust of wind as ED-E zoomed perilously close to my head. He was swiveling around, like he was looking for the shooter as well. There was a glint of metal above me, on the roof of one of the buildings on the right side of the street. I pointed Roscoe at the flash, but when I saw what was up there, I hesitated.

Standing on the roof of the building and carrying a large kind of rifle I'd never seen before was a figure clad all in black. It looked like it might have been human, but I couldn't tell. In fact, I couldn't make out any details about the figure or the gun he or she or it was carrying. The only thing I could make out were three yellow circles of light where its eyes should've been. The figure clad in black just stood there with its weapon lowered, staring at me.

"What the fuck?" I said aloud. The figure merely lifted a hand away from the rifle, and placed a finger where its mouth should've been. The air around the figure shimmered with a blue crackle, and promptly disappeared. Who or whatever had just blown Orris in half must have been using a Stealth Boy.

A deathly silence fell over the alley. The only noise came from ED-E, who let out a series of mechanical beeps that made it seem like he was just as confused as me. A minute passed, and nothing happened. Finally, I moved from the spot where I'd felt rooted to the ground, and put Roscoe back in its holster. Slowly, cautiously, I made my way to where Orris' body lay in pieces.

His upper half was a good ten feet away from where his legs had fallen. His left hand and his right arm below the elbow were completely gone. There was a large blackened hole on the street between his torso and his legs; it was easily six or seven inches deep. There wasn't any blood – it looked like whatever blew him apart had cauterized the wound and completely fused the meat and bone together.

The only kind of guns I could think of that fuse wounds like this were energy weapons, like laser rifles and plasma rifles, but… the level of power required to do something like this was completely unheard of. I'd certainly never encountered anything that could've done this, and I'd never heard of any energy weapons hitting people with enough force to blow them apart like this.

I just sort of stared at the body for a minute. ED-E beeped next to me, and I just sighed.

"When the fuck did my life get so weird?"


	26. Chapter 25: A Little Less Conversation

Chapter 25: A Little Less Conversation

* * *

_That was Vera Keys, singing her calming melody "Let the Bright Tomorrow in." This is Radio New Vegas, and I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas. It's the top of the hour, so you know what that means - time for some news. Residents living north east of Vegas have reported an increased number of explosions in the already bombed-out neighborhoods surrounding Nellis Air Force Base. I don't know what's gotten the Boomers all riled up like that, but if you want my advice? Steer clear. Today's headlines were brought to you by the Lady Luck casino in Freeside, wishing you lady like luck tonight. Ladies and Gentlemen, this next song goes out from me to you. It's Bing Crosby, reminding us of those times when you absolutely have to kiss the person you love. "Something's Gotta Give" up next._

* * *

ED-E had disappeared.

A few seconds after Orris had been blown apart, ED-E had flown off, presumably in pursuit of the assassin. I was left in that alley, trying to piece together what the fuck had just happened, while question after question barreled through my head. That assassin who had disappeared - who was he, or she, or it? Why kill Orris? Why use such a big gun on a soft target like Orris? The kind of blast that gun produced looked like something you'd use to kill someone wearing Powered Armor or sitting inside a tank, not armor made out of bits of rusted motorcycles. Why use a stealth boy? Why couldn't I make out any details about the shooter? There were just too many questions to which I just couldn't figure out the answers.

The worst part was that energy blast hadn't exactly been subtle. We were off the beaten path in a back street alley, sure, and it's not like Freeside had any sort of law that I knew of – apart from the Kings – but the noise was bound to draw the attention of someone, and probably very soon. So if I was going to do anything to try and figure out what was going on, I'd have to do it fast.

I knelt down next to what was left of his legs and started looking through the thigh panels in Orris' armor. There wasn't much – just the 200 caps I'd paid him, plus a few hundred extra caps. I found some ammo for his pistol – sure enough, the rounds he had for that hunting revolver were blanks. He also had a passport for the Strip, a pair of keys, a couple of pencils, a fission battery, a dozen playing cards, a few folded up scraps of paper, and several hundred NCR dollars in twenties that I wasn't too ashamed to put in my own pockets.

What I didn't expect to find were the coins. There were about two dozen metal coins, with ten made out of silver, and the rest made out of gold – and both types of coins were embossed with a very familiar head with a large hook nose. They both had writing as well - the silver said "Caesar Dictator" on the front, and the gold said "Aeternit Imperi." This was Legion currency, no doubt, and if nothing else it just raised more questions.

I didn't really have time to question any further however, because I heard the muffled sounds of voices and footfalls from around the corner of one of the nearby buildings. So I grabbed what I could of the cash, holstered Roscoe, and bolted before anyone arrived and could find me standing over what was left of a man that had been blown in half.

* * *

According to my Pip Boy, it was just a little after 3pm as I walked along Las Vegas Boulevard. Either no one had seen me leaving where Orris had died… or no one cared. And it's not like there weren't people around, either. There weren't too many crowds, but it wasn't empty like the ghost town in my coma-hallucination from a few days ago.

As I walked along, I really started taking stock of the state of Freeside. Nearly every time I'd travelled through Freeside since coming to Vegas, I'd passed through in my car, and hadn't really paid attention unless I needed to go somewhere. But now that I was paying attention… for every group of well dressed people heading south towards The Strip, there was another group of people wearing rags, unwashed and unshaven, huddled around a burning trashcan. For every shop or restaurant that proudly proclaimed they were open for business, there were just as many buildings that were boarded up with broken windows, trash scattered around, and covered in graffiti. For every six or seven story casino decked out in neon lights and flashy signs, there was another building that had collapsed in on itself from 200 years of wear, disrepair, and abuse.

Then I took a look behind me. The skyscrapers of The Strip loomed over Freeside, and, of course, the most monolithic of them all was the Lucky 38. Compared to Freeside, The Strip was practically pristine, full of money, and people willing to spend it. It was an oasis, a shining beacon of civilization. But, in a way, it was… menacing, somehow. I've been in some bad places before, but for some reason the fact that Freeside, with all its poverty and destitute masses living in the shadow of the wealth and excess of The Strip, made it the most depressing.

An oasis is a fine, welcome relief when you find it. But the biggest problem with an oasis is that, by its very nature, a wasteland of lifelessness must surround it.

I just kept walking for a while, losing myself in my thoughts. And then, I was suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Well, hey there, stranger. Need a lift?" I looked up, and there was Cass behind the wheel of my car, rolling alongside me as I walked along. Veronica was in the passenger seat, Arcade was in the back, and ED-E was hovering just above the roof. I stopped walking, and Cass rolled the Corvega to a halt.

"Uh… hi guys," I was more than a little confused. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd all be out... you know, doing stuff."

"Well, we kinda were. We went to th' El Cortez, did a bit'a gamblin'," Cass said, getting out of the car and tossing me the keys. "It was pretty fun, y'should come along next time."

"But right when I was about to make a killing at the blackjack table," Veronica interrupted, getting out of the car and leaning on the roof "ED-E showed up out of nowhere, beeping at us like he did when you were in trouble at The Fort." The eyebot hovered near her and she patted his chassis. He chirped contentedly.

"So, are you?" Arcade leaned out of the back window. "I mean, I don't see any heavily armed thugs beating the shit out of you..."

"Heh... no, I'm fine," I said, shaking my head and chuckling.

"See?" Arcade leaned back in the backseat. "What did I tell you? I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"The only reason you said that was because you don't trust ED-E," Veronica chided. ED-E hovered close to her and gave a satisfied electronic chirp.

"Well, thanks, I appreciate you guys coming to find me so fast," Frankly, I was a bit at a loss for words.

"You'd do th' same for any one of us," Cass stated, matter-of-factly.

"Yes I would," I replied with a nod, and without thinking. As I said it, I realized I meant it. I really would do anything I could to help them if I found out they were in some kind of trouble. I hadn't known any of them for very long - I'd known Cass and ED-E the longest, but I'd only known those two for about a week. Despite that, I already considered all of them really close friends. I suppose it's hard to describe, but that's just the way it is.

"Only thing is," I said with a smirk "you guys don't seem to get in the same kind of trouble that I do."

"Yeah, speaking of trouble, where's that Orris guy?" Arcade looked out of the back window again. "Aren't you supposed to be busy pretending to be a helpless tourist or something?"

"Yeah... about that..."

* * *

"Let me see if I've got this straight," Veronica stated as we drove through Freeside. "Everything was going fine, right up to the point when what's-his-face exploded."

"That doesn't make sense, tho," Cass said from the passenger seat. "Th' way you were describing him, he sounded like a grade-a fuck up."

"A bit of an idiot," Veronica added.

"Exactly," Cass nodded, leaning back in her chair. "Who'd waste th' time'n effort blowin' him up?"

"What about you, Arcade?" I added. He perked his head up, and looked confused.

"Sorry, what?"

"You've just been awful quiet during my story," I said. "What's your take on this whole thing?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what the assassin might have used," Arcade furrowed his brow and started stroking his chin. "You said there was a really loud explosion like a thunderbolt, a beam of blue energy, and then he got blown in half, right?" I nodded.

"It all happened kind of at once, but pretty much, yeah."

"That sounds kind of like the discharge from a Tesla Cannon," Veronica spoke up.

"That sounds kind of like the discharge from a Tesla Rifle prototype," Arcade said at exactly the same time as Veronica. The two of them just sort of turned and stared at each other. Cass, on the other hand, chuckled.

"What are you talking about, Tesla Rifle?" Veronica asked Arcade. "It's not a rifle, it's a shoulder mounted cannon."

"I'm a bit confused as to how you know what a Tesla Cannon is in the first place..." Arcade studied her intently. "What did you say you did again?"

"Procurement specialist," Veronica responded quickly, completely deadpan. Arcade merely rolled his eyes.

"What, is that just another fancy name for scavenger? Kind of like how people in the Mojave insist on calling it 'prospecting' instead of calling it what it actually is?"

"Man," Cass had been leaning over her chair, watching the two in the backseat. "You two sound like an' old married couple, y'know that, right?" When the two of them looked back at her with a look of abject horror, Cass busted out laughing. Both of them shook their heads simultaneously.

"Ew," the two of them said, practically in unison.

"If you two can manage to stop bickering for a moment," I pulled the Corvega to a stop outside The Kings School of Impersonation. "I think we're here."

* * *

"What do you have for me?" The King asked, reclining in his chair in the theater. Up on the stage was another one of the Kings, sitting on a stool with a guitar across his lap.

"Orris was a fraud," I said simply, sitting down in the chair next to him. "He faked attacks on his clients with like 3 or 4 hired goons and then played hero. I mean, hell, his gun had blanks." The King just sort of nodded, and he furrowed his brow slightly.

"So, that's how it happens... Okay then, I'll have some guys pull him off the street when no one's looking."

"Actually," I said, scratching the back of my head, and trying to look nonchalant. "Orris shouldn't really be a problem any longer. If you catch my meaning?" I had decided on the drive over to keep quiet to The King about the assassin. I don't think he would've believed me anyway.

"Ah. It went down like that, huh? Spare me the details," he shrugged and gave his dog a scratch behind the ears. "I guess it can't be helped now. You're not subtle, but you get the job done, and done quick. That's good enough for me. So maybe you can help me with something else."

"Another job, eh?" I asked. The King nodded. "So what's the deal this time? I hope it's not pretending to be helpless again, 'cause that didn't really work so well."

"Nah, nothing like that. I was just hoping you could help out a couple of friends of mine."

"Is this just what the Kings do then?" I asked. "Put bullies in their place, and help people out around Freeside?" The King just chuckled.

"A bit, yeah. See, the thing you gotta understand, is this: Freeside is my home. It's home to every one of the Kings. More than that, though, it's home to a lot of really good people. But things around here have gotten... well, pretty dangerous, to be honest. It wasn't always like this, though."

"It wasn't?" I asked, honestly a bit shocked. Even back West, in "civilized" places in the NCR like Shady Sands, Sac-Town, or Vault City, there was still violence, crime, gangs...

"No. Back in the old days, we were all just tribes or scavengers living in this area, just trying to make a living. And then, about ten years ago now, Mr. House came around, made an offer to the three biggest tribes willing to listen. They became the Three Families, and started running the first three casinos he opened on the Strip. He made more offers to other tribes as he opened up more casinos, until he filled up the Strip. The rest of us outside the gates were left to fight over the crumbs, living in the shadow of those more fortunate. Things got pretty nasty for a while."

"So how do the Kings fit in with all this?" I asked. "Did you guys step in when the fighting started, bring the peace?" The King shook his head.

"Not really. Well, not right away. See, the Kings were never really a tribe. Not until me and Pace found this place, I guess."

"Pace?" I tried thinking back to all the Kings whose names I knew: Vince, Jimmy, Clint, Danny... Didn't know a Pace.

"Yeah, Pacer, you know?" I just continued to stare at him blankly. "You've probably seen him around, he's the big guy, likes wearin' the jailhouse rocker outfit."

"Oh, you mean the guy who tried to get some caps out of me when I first got here?" I asked. The King shrugged.

"Tried to get some money from you, did he? Don't judge him too harshly for that. He probably took you for a squatter, looking for a place to settle down. Anyway, he and I founded The Kings when we discovered this place. We were practically kids at the time. It was all boarded up, run down, didn't look like anybody had touched it since before the bombs. Near as I can tell, this place was some sort of religious institution."

"Seriously?" I deadpanned. The King just chuckled.

"Oh, I know it says 'school' out front, but everything in here was related to the worship of some guy from back in the day, who folks held up to be the epitome of cool. People used to come here from all around to learn about him, to dress like him, dance like him, sing like him, move like him, even speak like him. To **be** him. If that's not worship, I don't know what is."

"So, is that what you guys do, pretend to be this guy?"

"Somethin' like that, yeah. There were some holotapes here when we first arrived, but they stopped working a few years back, so I think Pace and I are the only ones left who still remember what he sounds like. But the thing of it is, we don't even know his real name. All the posters you saw out in the other room, they all just referred to him as "The King."

"And that's where you got the name from."

"Well, that and the giant sign outside," The King smirked. "This place could've been 'The King's House of Dog Chow' and I still would have taken the name." He scratched Rex behind the ears. "I like to think we keep the memory alive... see, The Kings are different than other gangs. And not just because we dress better. We're all about an idea, you see? Where every man is free to follow his own path, do his own thing. Where every man is a king in his own right. That's why we stepped up, to help quiet things down. The people living here... we wanted a place of our own. A place where nobody could tell us what to do - and more than that, we didn't want to go elsewhere to find it. So we took control of this place, and made it our own. That's all Freeside is, really. It's the best of a bad situation."

I nodded, thinking over all he'd told me. I could be wrong, but I think The King was the first truly, legitimately decent human being I'd ever met. Here he was, a guy with practically a small army, and what does he do with his influence? He tries to help people, to try and make Freeside safer... to make life for everyone living here better. The kind of person who does that just doesn't exist.

"Alright," I finally said. "So, what's the job?"

"Ever since the Strip was finished, a lot of people have arrived who couldn't afford to get in, and have just ended up squatting in Freeside. A lot of the locals resent the sheer number of newcomers. Most, but not all, of the newcomers have come from the NCR. In turn, a lot of the newcomers have gotten ornery from all the hate directed their way. Sometimes, things get violent. This is one of those times. A few friends of mine were attacked recently, and I want you to find out who did it before any of my boys jump to conclusions. Word's come down that they're over at the Old Mormon Fort just north of here. Head on over and see if they remember anything."

* * *

"Goddamn, I could use a drink," I heard Cass mumble from the passenger seat as I drove through Freeside.

"So, drink something," I replied, only half joking. "Where's that flask I always see you carrying?"

"If I had anything to drink, I'd be drinkin' it already. B'sides, I ran outta whiskey fer m'flask, like, two hours ago."

"Well, it was bound to happen eventually," Veronica leaned into the front and playfully patted Cass on the shoulder. "Queen Whiskey has finally run dry!"

"Pfft," Cass scoffed, tipping her hat further back on her head. "Not a chance. I'll find somethin' soon, just you watch."

"Hey, Sheason?" Arcade spoke up, ignoring the other two. "You said we were headed back to the Old Mormon Fort, right?" I nodded.

"Yeah, The King wants me to check on some friends of his that got beat up. I think he said their names were Roy and Wayne, or something like that. Why?"

"Alright. I'm probably going to stick around the Fort for a while. Got a few things to do, and I need to talk to Julie about a couple of things, too."

"Fine by me, man," I shrugged. "Take as long as you need."

I parked the Corvega and made my way to the gates of the Mormon Fort. It was almost exactly like I remembered it from a few days ago.

"Hell, Mr. Fisher. Welcome back!" I heard a cheery voice to my side. It was Julie Farkas, her mohawk as pointy and outrageous as ever. "You look healthy, considering the last time I saw you. I take it Usanagi treated you well?"

"Well enough, I suppose," I said with a shrug. "Arcade wanted to talk with you, though."

"Oh, hello Arcade. I didn't see you back there." Arcade just sort of nodded.

"Now, before you two get involved in some discussion about science and medicine using words half of us have never heard of and don't know the meaning of, I actually had a question myself. I'm looking for these two guys, Roy and Wayne? The King wanted me to check up on them." Julie just smiled sweetly.

"That sounds like The King. We've actually had a large number of injuries from fights breaking out the last several days. You can find those two in the big medical tent on the southern edge of the Fort."

* * *

The inside of the tent smelled like vomit and formaldehyde.

It was easily the largest tent in the Old Mormon Fort, with at least two dozen medical gurneys, with what looked like stained cots resting on top of each. A few in the far back looked like they'd been converted into makeshift operating tables. Nearly every cot was occupied, with people sitting or lying on them - some had more than one person. For all the injured, there were only two doctors in Followers labcoats hovering about, checking on people.

To my left, I saw a man sitting on a nearby cot. He had an old, wrinkled face and thinning white hair - I could only see half of his face, though, because of a large bandage and an eye patch covering his left eye. He was wearing some brownish grey rags, and his right arm was in a sling. His one visible eye was closed.

"Hey, uh..." I gently nudged him in the shoulder, and he scrunched his face up in a grimace. "I hate to bother you, but do you know where I can find Roy and Wayne?"

"Goddamn, what now?" he groaned, turning to me. "Can't you see I want to be left alone with my friend here?" He motioned to the black man lying on the cot across from him. His friend's right arm was in a cast, and he was wearing a dark red hoodie that had been amateurishly stitched together - it looked like the kind of job I'd have done. He was softly snoring in that way people do when they're only pretending to be asleep.

"Look," I said. "The King asked me to look into their attack. Do you know where I can find them?"

"The King?" The old man raised his visible eyebrow, and his friend stirred. "Oh, well, that's different then. I'm Roy. That's Wayne over there."

"Is there anything you can tell me about the attack, like who was responsible?" I asked.

"Well, it happened pretty late last night. Around eleven, I think. The pair of us had made some caps off a bit of scrap we found, so we decided to invest it wisely."

"Invest?" Veronica asked from behind me. Roy just nodded.

"Yeah, we went to the Wrangler." Cass and I exchanged amused looks, and Veronica just shook her head as Roy continued.

"Anyway, when we left, I think we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because we ended up in the squatter side of town. Out of nowhere, these big guys showed up and started barking questions at us. Wanted to know if we were locals. The kid there's about as proud as a local gets around here, and started yelling back at them. Next thing I know, I'm facedown in the dirt getting the snot kicked out of me. The kid got the worst of it, though." I just raised an eyebrow at that, looking at the two of them.

"Seriously? No offense, but you look pretty beat up," Cass chimed in, giving voice to what I was thinking.

"Yeah, well," Roy coughed loudly. "That's just because I'm old and fragile. Wayne over there, he's still at that age where you're made of rubber and magic."

"Do you remember anything about the people who attacked you?" I asked. "Something I might be able to tell The King to identify them by?" Roy shook his head.

"Not really, no. It was really dark, so I didn't get a good look at them before I was face down on the ground. Wayne saw more than I did," he nudged to cot across from him with his foot, and Wayne stirred himself 'awake.' "It's okay Wayne. The King sent him." Wayne sat up, and only opened one of his eyes; his right eye looked swollen shut.

"That true? Did The King really send you?" I nodded.

"He did. And anything you could tell me about what happened might help."

"Well..." Wayne looked a little nervous. "I don't really know what else I can add. They were a bunch of guys... better dressed than most Freesiders, I guess. That help?"

"Every little bit helps, thanks," I nodded, thinking about that. "Do you mean like someone from The Strip better dressed?" Wayne shook his head.

"No, they weren't suits, they were... well, kind of better dressed like you guys, actually," I blinked, and realized that he was right - Cass, Veronica and I really did look better dressed than most people around Freeside. Although, that probably was just because we'd gotten the chance to wash with clean water recently.

"Sorry I couldn't help more, especially since you're being so nice," Wayne added, drooping his shoulders a bit. Suddenly, he perked up and snapped his fingers with the arm that wasn't in the cast. "Hey, wait! I just remembered something. I think one of the guys that beat us up called the other by name. We'd just about had it when one of them said 'Hey Lou, we gotta go!'"

"Alright, so, we're looking for a guy named Lou? I'm sure that narrows things down," Veronica said with a chuckle.

"Well, I think he said Lou," Wayne furrowed his brow, and looked like he was really thinking hard about this. "It might have been something else... now that I think about it, it was Lou... something. I think it was something with a T," Wayne paused, and then practically shouted "Tenant! That's what he called him, Lou Tenant!" He beamed at us, and looked very pleased with himself. I think I heard the unmistakable slap of Veronica burying her face in her palm behind me.

"He probably said 'Lieutenant,' Wayne," I heard Roy chide his friend before turning back to me. "The boy means well, but he's as dumb as a mutant sometimes." I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

"Hey, don't worry about it, man. I'll be sure to tell The King what you told me."

"I really hope you find the bastards that did this," Roy said, grimacing as he shifted position on the cot. "Things in Freeside haven't been this bad since right before the riots when the Strip filled up."

* * *

"So, you found anything out yet?" The King asked when I stepped back into the theater.

"Well, I talked to your friends. They were attacked by soldiers - one of them called the other a Lieutenant." The King didn't look surprised at all. He just sort of nodded.

"Bunch of soldier boys, huh? If they're soldiers, that means they're NCR. They usually don't come around these parts since their big base is on the other side of the Strip. If they're comin' over here now, it's got to be a for a reason. I didn't want to believe the rumors that they're looking to take over Vegas, but now... if something big is going down, I'm sure rumors of it will have spread. Ask around, over in the squatter areas where the NCR folk hang."

"Got any other leads?" I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets. "Last time I had to get information out of squatters, I had to pay through the nose before I got anything I could use."

"Alright, that's fair enough," The King shrugged. "You might also mosey back on over to the Mormon Fort and chat Julie Farkas up. The Followers tend to be in the know about these things. Just don't ask her what to do about it. She'll probably ask you to hug someone or somethin'."

* * *

"You're kiddin' me!" Cass practically yelled when I told her. "Back to th' Fort? We were just fuckin' there!"

"Backtracking, thy name is Fisher," Veronica just smiled and laughed at me.


	27. Chapter 26: A Little More Action

**Chapter 26: A Little More Action**

* * *

_You're listening to Radio New Vegas, your little jukebox in the Mojave Wasteland. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas, fanning the flames of your passion. Got some Nat King Cole coming up later on in the program, but right now it's time for some news. A large group of Fiends made an attempt to force their way into the front gate of Camp McCarran earlier this week. Even though they were successfully driven off by NCR troops defending the base, one Major Dhatri spoke to one of our representatives, saying that, quote, "This is the last fucking straw!" The NCR is now looking to hire mercenaries to help deal with the mounting Fiend threat. The news this hour has been brought to you by the Ultra-Luxe Hotel and Casino: Live life in the lap of luxury. More classics coming right up for you, so stay tuned._

* * *

I do not like backtracking. Retracing my steps has always felt like paying for the same real estate twice, for some reason. Not that I've ever had to pay for real estate... On the other hand, talking to Julie Farkas seemed the most sensible option, since it was already getting close to five. I'm sure that given enough time and caps, I could _probably_ get something useful out of the squatters and junkies. But, quite frankly, I wasn't interested in spending that much time and money when Julie probably knew what was going on anyway.

That's what I kept telling myself at least as I, yet again, walked into the Old Mormon Fort. However, this time, Julie wasn't there to greet me. In fact, I couldn't find her anywhere.

"How hard is it to find one woman in a lab coat and a Mohawk?" I finally said aloud after ten minutes of searching every single tent in the Mormon Fort, and coming up empty handed.

"You lookin' for Julie?" I heard a voice behind me speak up. I turned around and was face to face with one of the armed guards I'd seen walking around the Fort. "Yeah, she's in her office, talking with Arcade." He took a hand off the rifle slung across his chest, and pointed to the two story tower in the southwest corner of the Fort.

"... oh." I said lamely. "Uh... thanks." Cass just looked smug. ED-E let off a few beeps that could almost be mistaken for chuckles.

"Guess it's not all that hard at all," Veronica chimed in unhelpfully.

"That's what she said?" Cass couldn't even finish before she started cracking up.

"Oh, don't start!"

* * *

"Julie?" I asked, knocking on the door. No answer, so I tried the handle and found it was unlocked. Inside was a very small room made even smaller by the sheer amount of clutter filling it: blackboards filled with chalk scribbles, chemistry sets, several filing cabinets overflowing with papers and notes, diagrams, x-rays, and at least two head-high bookcases full of books.

"Someone's a pack rat," I heard Veronica say from behind me.

"You should talk," Cass nudged Veronica in the ribs, and looked around. "Guess nobody's home."

"Or we could just see if she and Arcade belong to the voices coming from upstairs," I said, pointing to the staircase in the corner.

"Huh. How'd I miss that?" Cass asked aloud.

"Probably the same way I missed that this building even existed in the first place," I shrugged. As the three of us made our way up the stairs (ED-E was busy hovering about outside, chasing a giant rat alongside a couple of local kids) the muffled voices coming from upstairs became much more distinct.

"So, you're saying it is possible then?" I heard Julie ask.

"In a sense, yes," Arcade replied. "We were just wrong about using barrel cacti. I've done some calculations and I believe it's entirely possible to create new stimpacks if we were to use Broc Flower extract as a catalyst, combined with liquefied Xander Root."

"This is very good work, Arcade. I can't believe the answer was staring us in the face this whole time." She made a soft 'hmm'-ing sound. "And you said this research was pointless."

"I'm not completely done yet, Julie. I mean, I am going to have to run some actual tests to be sure, I just haven't gotten the chance yet..." Before the two of them could continue, I reached the top of the stairs and knocked on the nearby wall to grab their attention. They both turned towards me at the noise.

"Hey Julie, Arcade. The front door was open," I said quickly. "Sorry to interrupt, but I just had a quick question for you Julie."

"Certainly," Julie said, taking a sip from the tea cup in her hand. "What do you need?"

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about NCR soldiers here in Freeside, would you?" Julie's face, which had been smiling, suddenly grew serious. She furrowed her brow and set the tea cup down on the table between herself and Arcade.

"A little, yes. I know a friend of mine, Major Elizabeth Kieran, has been handing out supplies to the poor a little west of here. What of it?"

"Wayne told me that one of the people who attacked him and Roy was a Lieutenant. The King thinks the NCR troops have been the ones attacking locals." Julie merely sighed.

"I know something has them riled up, but I've been too busy with other matters to really look into it."

"Like making new stimpacks? I couldn't help but overhear you two on the way up." Arcade nodded.

"That was just one of the projects Julie had me working on. Of course, if this actually works, then we're going to have the problem of finding enough ethanol to keep the equipment sanitized and sterile..." Arcade started mumbling to himself and stroking his chin, obviously lost in thought once again. Julie shook her head and smiled at Arcade as she turned back to me.

"If you're looking into the matter, I suggest you talk to Elizabeth. She's in charge of the operations here in Freeside. She's... well, I'll be honest, she's not exactly the warmest person, but she has a very strong sense of loyalty. She probably won't open up to you right away. If you mention that I sent you her way, she'll probably be more cooperative."

"I will. Thanks for the help," I said with a nod.

* * *

It didn't take long to find the place where the NCR had set up shop in Freeside. Julie had said they were operating out of a small, red brick building with no windows in the far western part of Freeside, close to Cerulean Robotics and the abandoned train station near the broken I-15 overpass.

Of course, the two big guys leaning on the wall on either side of the building's front door, keeping an obvious watch, probably helped it stand out as well. I finally understood what Wayne meant when he said they were dressed better than most Freesiders when I finally got a look at the two guards. They weren't wearing rags, but instead were in outfits that wouldn't have looked out of place on mercenaries: leather jackets and vests, forearm armor, ammo pouches all over, that sort of thing. ED-E hovered by the car as the three of us made our way to the door. One of the big guys stood up off the wall, and held out a hand to try and stop us.

"Hold up," he said in a gruff voice. "What's the password?" Now that I got an up-close look at them, there was something that caught my eye: they had subdued military style patches sewn onto their outfits. They were small, and made out of dark fabrics that sort of blended into their clothes, and it easily identified them as NCR... but only up close. The one still leaning against the wall had Captain's bars, and the one talking to me had Sergeant's chevrons.

"I'm here to see Major Kieran on urgent business. It's important that I talk to her right away." The Sergeant took a step back, seemingly surprised that I mentioned her by name. He looked back to the Captain, who just nodded as he continued to lean against the wall.

"I... uh, I suppose it's all right if you're here to see the Major. Head on through."

The inside of the building was surprisingly small, and appeared even smaller because it was jam-packed to the brim, wall-to-wall, with people. A few were crowded around tables, eating food and drinking water out of brown plastic bottles, but most were standing around in a big crowd near a counter at the back. There were a few construction lights providing a yellowish-orange sort of illumination hooked up to the ceiling, connected to wires that looked like they'd been stapled to the peeling plaster, all of which led back to a small electric generator, loudly and steadily chugging away.

"Here you are," I heard a soft (and yet somehow, surprisingly loud) voice over the general murmur of the crowd. "Food and water here for any citizen of the NCR. Please, have some." I tried to shove my way through the crowd to get a better look, and saw that the owner of the voice was a woman with closely cropped brown hair, and a face that looked dry and stressed from entirely too much work. She was wearing a dirty black leather jacket, kept snug and secure like a military uniform with the aid of several leather straps, and two ammo bandoliers strung across her chest. On the collar of her jacket, I saw a patch with a subdued dark orange oak leaf.

"Oy!" A voice yelled in my ear, and I got elbowed in the ribs. "Fuckin' wait yer turn man! I'm starvin' here!" The man was wearing a dirty denim jacket, a ballcap with a pair of goggles perched on the brim, and he had bags under his eyes the size of my car's tires.

"Hey, calm down, I'm not here for the food. I'm here to see the Major," and with that, I finally squeezed my way to the counter. "Excuse me, are you Major Kieran?"

"Yes..." She just sort of looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "I'm a Major in the NCR supply corps. Can I help you?"

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions, do you have a minute?" She looked me up and down, before she finally nodded.

"Alright, come on back here and we can talk. Corporal, take over." She motioned to one of the soldiers in the back, who set down a burlap sack and took over her spot handing out food at the counter. She and I both moved towards the wall - though, it must be said, she had an easier go of it than me, because she didn't have to contend with half a dozen people all crowding towards the counter. When I finally got to the wall, she lifted up a hatch and opened up a door to let me in the back.

"So," she said after she closed the counter's hatch behind me. "What can I do for you, Mr..."

"Fisher. Sheason Fisher. I just wanted to ask a few questions about, er, all of this," I tried to vaguely gesture to the crowd of people in the tiny building. "All these people here - are they all just NCR citizens?"

"Yes they are," she nodded. "The food and water comes from the NCR supply corps, after all."

"Do you serve food to locals as well?" She visibly stiffened, and crossed her arms across her chest.

"No, I'm afraid we don't," she said curtly. "Do you have a friend you wanted to bring in?"

"Not really, I'm just a little curious. I'd heard you were handing out food to the poor. Why don't you serve food to everyone?"

"That's not really a pleasant topic of conversion," she pursed her lips and started to scowl, before finally adding "Let's just say we have our reasons." Well, Julie was right. She really isn't opening up. Time to play my joker.

"Julie Farkas told me to ask. She said it was important." On hearing that name, the Major's eyes lit up, and her expression softened.

"You know Julie?" She uncrossed her arms, and her stance relaxed slightly. "Not everyone in the NCR sees eye-to-eye with the Followers anymore, but they're okay in my book... mostly because of her." She cleared her throat, and paused, like she was trying to give herself time to think of what she was going to say next. "If you really want to know, my superiors at McCarran originally sent us here on a relief mission to help the people living in Freeside - both citizens of the NCR and the locals. It was slated to be a massive operation, if I'm honest. We sent an envoy to the King, offering to coordinate the relief effort." She tried to hide a grimace, and inhaled sharply through her nostrils.

"What, did the King refuse or something?" I asked. That didn't really sound like him. Helping people out seemed like his M.O.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," she said bitterly. "The man we sent, Sergeant Black, was brutally beaten within an inch of his life, and barely survived."

"Wait, what?" I practically shouted. That didn't sound like The King. She just nodded her head grimly.

"I don't joke about the men under my command. He has to drink all his meals through a straw for the next eight months. Because of that, the relief mission was scrapped. I eventually managed to get clearance to carry out the mission anyway, but with greatly reduced support. Now?" She let out a half-sigh, half-laugh. "Now, there aren't enough supplies to go around, even if I wanted to serve the rest of Freeside. Which I don't." She lifted up the panel on the counter, making it obvious she wanted me to get out. "But, that's all in the past now. I should get back to work. Say hi to Julie for me."

I had a lot to think about while I made my way through the throng of people and towards the front door. Cass and Veronica had both stayed close to the front, and quickly joined me as I walked out the front door and back towards the car. The air outside certainly didn't feel as close as it had in there.

"So?" Cass asked. "What's up? What'd she say?"

"I need to talk to the King. There's something here that stinks." Either that, or maybe I'm not as good at reading people as I thought. Maybe I'm just getting old, starting to slip.

"I's th' 'astelan', ev'ryone st'nks," Veronica sounded like she was trying to talk with a giant ball of cotton stuck in her mouth. Cass, ED-E and I looked back at her, and it didn't take me long to see she had an open box of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes in her hands... and one of the old-world sweets still in her mouth. She looked back at the both of us, and audibly gulped. "What?"

"Did you grab those from in there?" I pointed back at the brick building. Veronica just shrugged.

"I like Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, what can I say?"

"You know they don't make those anymore. All the boxes that currently exist _have existed_ for the last 200 years. You know that, right?" I asked. As if in response, she took a big bite from another one of the cubes of cake and icing.

"Eh, these things have enough preservatives in them, they'll probably last another 200 years before they start to go bad."

* * *

It was a very short drive back to The King's place. As Cass, Veronica and I walked away from my car and towards the front door to get some answers out of the King, the door swung open and about six Kings spilled out, led by Pacer. He looked at me, seemingly not recognizing me at first. But then he scowled at me.

"I know you," he said in that same old world accent as before. "You're that Courier everyone's been talkin' about, ain't ya?"

"Yeah, and I know you," I said, crossing my arms across my chest and keeping my voice level. "You're the guy who tried to extort money out of me when I wanted to see the King earlier." He just snorted.

"I heard something else, too. I heard that NCR soldier lady told you some wild story about them sending a messenger to us to work out some kinda deal," The Kings with Pacer all seemed to try and surround the three of us; I heard Cass and Veronica move their backs to mine and each other. Off in the distance, I heard ED=E spout off a burst of marching music from his spot over the car. Pacer stepped closer to me, pointing a finger at my chest. "That's a load of bullshit, and it's nothing to bother the King with. More like they sent someone to spy on us and he wasn't tough enough to last in Freeside. So, how about you do everyone a favor, and keep your mouth shut about it." As he spoke, everything started to make sense.

"Maybe," I shrugged... but then I smirked, getting a funny idea. "I suppose anything is possible. How much is my silence worth to you?" Pacer just shook his head and snorted at me again.

"Cute," Pacer motioned with his head, and the Kings around us started to disperse and walk away. He started walking closer to me, instead. "Do what you want. Just don't expect it to matter." He walked past me, and quickly caught up with the other Kings walking off. ED-E zoomed away from my car and hovered near me, beeping out a few electronic notes. I just sort of stared at Pacer as he walked away.

"Well, I think we know who's lyin' t'us now. Y'weren't really gonna keep quiet if he gave ya money, were ya?" Cass asked. I shook my head.

"Nah, I just thought it'd be kind of funny if I turned his words from before against him. Thing I want to know, though..." I opened the door to The Kings and started walking. "How the hell does he even know I went to talk to Major Kieran, or what was said?"

"What do you mean?" Veronica asked.

"We were there, what, five minutes ago? Less? And then we drove straight here." Veronica shrugged.

"Maybe they have radios or something? I dunno."

"What if..." Cass grabbed my shoulder and got a crazed look in her eye. "Maybe they have these little handheld phones that're also, like, cameras an' computers an' music players?" Veronica and I just sort of paused and stared at her. "I mean, it's an idea."

"So, you're saying all the Kings have handheld computers that are smaller, more advanced, and more compact than a Pip Boy?" I said, holding up my arm. "No offense, Cass, but that's a bit of a stretch for guys like the Kings. The Brotherhood, maybe, but not the Kings."

"Yeah, I suppose... does sound kinda stupid, now'm thinkin' 'bout it." Cass sighed. Veronica, on the other hand, just stayed strangely quiet.

When the three of us entered the theater, The King was, unsurprisingly, sitting in his usual spot in the center of the room. One of the Kings was leaving the stage, which was full of musical instruments, like guitars and drums, and two rusty speakers on either end. The King must have heard me coming, because he turned in his chair when I got close.

"Well, hey there Fisher," The King said, taking a drink from the glass on his table. "Have a seat. You find out somethin' about them soldier boys yet?"

"I think I'll stand. The NCR is distributing supplies in a building down by the old train station." The King raised an eyebrow at that.

"Handing out supplies? Like food and stuff?" I nodded.

"Yeah, the place looks like a soup kitchen."

"That ain't nothin' to get ruffled over."

"Well, the woman in charge, Major Kieran, is only handing out food to NCR citizens."

"Ah," the King leaned back in his chair. "That would explain the goons. They're here to keep people like my friends away from the food. That ain't something I support. No sir."

"There's something else," I said. "Something Pacer didn't want me to tell you."

"Pace?" The King looked genuinely surprised. "What's Pace got to do with -"

"Major Kieran told me that someone was sent to you to help coordinate the relief efforts."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" The King practically shouted. "She said **what**?!" That's about what I thought.

"Yeah, the Major said the envoy they sent over to discuss the issue was severely beaten and only barely survived. Has to eat through a straw now." It took practically no time at all for The King to connect the dots. He just sighed and clutched at his forehead.

"Damnit, Pace..." The King got out of his chair to face me. "If nothin' else, this explains why they're all riled at us. Seems like we just have a big misunderst-" He was very suddenly cut off by the door of the theater slamming open. Everyone turned to look at the sound, and Vince - the guy who first told me the King wanted to see me a few hours ago - ran into the room.

"King!" He slid to a stop right next to us. "King, we got problems!"

"Lay it on me. What's going on?"

"A couple blocks from here, over by the old train station - there's a shootout going down between some of Pacer's boys and some strangers. I think the strangers might be NCR."

"What is that damn fool doing?!" The King turned back and pointed at me. "I need you to get out there to defuse the situation! Tell them I'm willing to cooperate, before Pace gets himself killed!"

I nodded and was just about to leave... and then I got an idea. It was another stupid, reckless, dangerous idea... but the King wanted to make sure the NCR knew his intentions as soon as possible. They probably wouldn't believe me if I just rocked up and told them. Time was of the essence.

And I had a car.

* * *

"This don't seem safe!" The King was sitting in the passenger seat, holding onto the door's window frame. Cass and Veronica were both in the back, and I was vaguely aware of the two of them rolling around as I sped down the streets.

"You're probably right!" I shouted over the sound of the horn. I was having to press into the steering wheel a lot harder than I remember; then again, it's not like I used the horn that often. I'm just glad it still worked. Even so, the noise was enough to make every Freesider jump out of the way while I floored it down Las Vegas boulevard. The engine in the back whined and I heard the clutch shudder as I shifted down into third and turned the car sharply down Ogden avenue.

The speed I was going, even swerving to miss the occasional abandoned wreck, it didn't take long to see our destination. Off in the distance, I saw the abandoned train station, sitting in the shadow of the broken freeway overpass. Closer to me, though, I could see a metal bus station - and inside, holding a 10mm SMG and trying to take cover behind the metal, was Pacer. Scattered all around the bus station were the bodies of the Kings who'd followed him from before. In the split second I had to look, I couldn't tell if any of them except Pacer were moving or not.

The most pressing issue at the moment, though, were all the muzzle flashes I saw from around the train station. And that's where I needed to be.

"Alright people, hands inside - and hang on!" I yelled. There was a crash and a hideous jolt as the car jumped the curb. As soon as the back wheels started to grip again, I swerved around the Kings lying on the ground, making sure to give them all a wide berth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw The King pull his hand away from the window, and grab the dashboard, so I flipped one of the switches under the empty hole in the dash where the radio was supposed to go. There was a clunk, the whole car rumbled, and sheets of metal shot up from inside the doors, blocking the windows. I turned the wheel on opposite lock and yanked on the handbrake just before we got to the train station. Before anybody knew what was happening, the car was sliding sideways across the broken tarmac, the wheels screeching and belching smoke.

As soon as a the car finished skidding and came to a halt, I became acutely aware of many, many noises all around - I'd been so focused on driving and not crashing, that I think I'd just tuned everything out. Cass was calling me dozens of variations on "you crazy sonuvabitch!" in frighteningly quick succession, Veronica was wondering aloud if we could have another go, and all around the car I heard the unmistakable pings of bullets ricocheting off the armored metal windows and the car's bodywork.

"Here, hold this," I told Cass, unbuttoning Roscoe from its holster and handing it to her grip first. I popped open the door just a crack, and shouted loud enough for the NCR soldiers to hear me: "Hold your fire! We're civilians, we just want to talk!"

Very shortly after that, the sound of bullets bouncing off the car slowed to a stop. Cautiously, I stepped out of the car with my hands raised. A few of the NCR troops - including the two I'd seen guarding the door from before - got up from behind their respective pieces of cover with their weapons, thankfully, lowered.

"What's going on?" I heard a familiar female voice sound off from inside the train station. "Why have you stopped firing?" Major Kieran walked out, with an ammo bandolier slung across her chest and an NCR service rifle in her hands. Really, it was just an old AR-15 with a wooden stock and foregrip, but since the NCR started outfitting (most) of their troops with them, they insisted they be called "service rifles."

"I'm sorry Major, but he says he's a civilian, and he looks unarmed," the Captain from before said to her. "What do we do?" The Major just gave me a look, seemingly as confused as all the rest of the NCR troops.

"You? What are you doing here?" She paused, then seemed to add as an afterthought, "This isn't really a good time."

"Look, there's been a huge misunderstanding here. The King wants to help with that relief effort of yours!" Major Kieran backed up, gripped her rifle tighter (but still didn't raise it), and narrowed her eyes at me.

"Like how he helped Sergeant Black? No thanks."

"Now hang on one minute, missy," The King got out my car and pointed at the Major. "I don't know where you get your information, but nobody NCR has come to see me about anything! That's a fact!" If the NCR troops were confused before, this must have really thrown them for a loop.

"Y'see?" I said, lowering my hands and gesturing towards The King. "Straight from the mouth of the man himself. What d'you think of that?" Major Kieran didn't answer. Instead, she just walked towards the front of my car; The King did the same, and the two of them met right in front of the Corvega badge on the hood of my car. Both of them looked rather serious, and neither of them was smiling.

"I guess I can buy that," She finally said. "But if that is true, you should watch your back. We know for a fact Sergeant Black made it to your headquarters. Do you know what happened to him?"

"I surely do, thanks to Mr. Fisher here. And I am sorry about your Sergeant. If I'd known about what happened to him before, I'd have dealt with this a lot sooner," The King nodded, somberly. "As it is, you have my word that I'm gonna lay down the law with my boys - and make sure this sort of thing never happens again."

"Alright," Kieran nodded, and slung her rifle over her shoulder. "I suppose if you're willing to deal with us, perhaps we can work something out." The next thing I knew, The King, Major Kieran, and the NCR troopers made their way over to where Pacer and the other Kings were; the Major had agreed to provide first aid to the wounded Kings, while The King tried to, hopefully, knock some sense into Pacer. Luckily, at least from where I was standing, it didn't look like any of the Kings had been seriously injured. Either the NCR troops were horrible shots, or they were merely aiming to wound.

Without warning, I felt a hand whack me rather hard upside the head.

"The hell, man!" Cass yelled at me. I rubbed the back of my head. "Y'could've gotten us all killed. Th'fuck were y'thinkin?"

"What are you worried about? We're fine." I said with a shrug. I rapped my knuckles against the metal 'windows' on my car. "That's what these were for." Cass just half-nodded, half shook her head.

"Okay, I'll admit. Wasn't expecting these. Seriously though, how'd you know y'weren't gonna get shot th' minute y'opened th' door?" She asked. I paused, and thought for a moment.

"Do you want the real answer, or the badassed answer?" I asked with a smirk. Cass just opened and closed her mouth a couple times, and gave me an exasperated look.

"Give me th' badass answer first, it'll probably be more interestin'."

"I didn't. It was a gamble, I rolled the dice, and I won. Fitting, for Vegas, don't you think?" I asked. Cass just shook her head again.

"And th' real answer?" Cass asked. I peered over my shoulder, and made sure there weren't any NCR troops nearby. Luckily, they were off a ways off, and all of them were out of earshot.

"NCR troopers are crap when it comes to using their own initiative. Confuse them with a situation they're unfamiliar with, and nine times out of ten they'll just stop and give you an opening, is what I've found."

"Yeah, th' badass answer's more interestin'," Cass opened the rear door and looked inside the car. "V, what'd you think?" Veronica poked her head out of the car, and folded her arms on the door.

"Yeah," Veronica said with a nod and a smirk. "Definitely go with the first one.

* * *

The next hour or so was a bit of a blur. After he made sure everyone who needed it got medical attention, The King wanted to make sure the spirit of newfound cooperation between The Kings and the NCR troopers under the Major was solidified. And, apparently, that meant holding a party at The Kings place.

I still don't know exactly what it was The King said to Pacer, but the man responsible for setting this whole mess in motion seemed a bit more sedate when everyone arrived for the party. I'm just glad he got cleaned up; when I went to check on everyone before leaving the train station, he was bleeding rather badly down the left side of his face. By the time of the party, he looked fine.

"Hello Sheason," Arcade said to me as he and Julie walked in. "So, I hear you sorted out this whole mess practically singlehanded. The Indestructible Courier now has a knack for diplomacy, too."

"Is that what people are saying now?" I sighed, unable to contain my utter exasperation at my apparent reputation.

"Well, that's what I'm saying," Arcade said with a smirk.

"All I did was get the people who needed to talk this out in the same place. That's it. And I suppose I'd be a pretty poor courier if I couldn't ferry people from place to place as well."

"I'm just glad no one else was seriously hurt. I think the worst of the Kings will be back on his feet by the middle of next week," Julie said. "And maybe now, things in Freeside might get less violent."

The two of them left to mingle in the ever growing crowd of people in the theater, and I left to go to the drinks table. Very kindly, The Kings had set up a table with refreshments, and didn't even bother setting out stuff like punch that would've inevitably been spiked; it was just row after row of dozens of bottles of liquor. There were some Kings on the stage setting up some musical instruments like a guitar, a drum set, and a double bass. It distracted me long enough that when I tried to grab the bottle of whiskey I was aiming for, all I grabbed was air.

"Told ya I'd find somethin'!" Cass smirked, putting the bottle to her lips and knocking it back. I shook my head and laughed, grabbing a bottle of beer from a nearby chest of ice instead.

"That you did, cheers," the two of us clinked our bottles together. Unfortunately, we were interrupted by the arrival of Pacer.

"Hey there girl," his voice came from behind me. "This guy botherin' ya? What do you say I show you a real good time, give you a massage in my place upstairs?" I had to hold back laughter. Cass, on the other hand, wasn't so diplomatic.

"Never gonna happen. I got a better idea, if yer lookin' fer somethin' t'do though. How about you stick yer head in a door, an' slam it shut really, really hard?" I didn't bother turning around, but he must have left after that because I didn't hear him again. The two of us just started laughing, and Cass took another drink as she looked up at the stage. "So what th' fuck'r they doin' up there, anyway?"

"What, you haven't heard?" One of the Kings said to Cass, reaching for a drink from the table. "The King has said he's gonna put on a show! You guys are in for a real treat, let me tell you. He hasn't done this in years!"

As if on cue, the lights in the theater dimmed, and a couple of spotlights lit up the stage. All the Kings in the crowd cheered and started clapping. The King strutted on stage, gave a wave, and grabbed the mic.

"Hey everyone! I want y'all to make sure the Major's boys here feel welcome. They're my guests here - treat them wrong, you answer to me, understand?" The crowd gave a little laugh, and The King continued. "I've been doing a lot of thinking about what went down today, and I think it's time for a little more talkin', and a little less fightin'. So I'm gonna kick it off tonight with a song about my hometown. A dream from the old world, from a time when every man had the chance to be a king in his own right. Viva Las Vegas, baby."

In a flash, the theater erupted - cheers from the crowd, music from the band on stage started blasting out of the speakers, and The King started dancing and singing and moving and shaking and... it was oddly hypnotic to watch.

* * *

_Bright light city gonna set my soul,_

_Gonna set my soul on fire!_

_Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn,_

_So get those stakes up higher!_

_There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there,_

_And they're all living, devil may care,_

_And I'm just the devil with love to spare,_

_Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas!_

* * *

I was just starting to relax, and without really thinking I put my hand in my pocket. My hand brushed against a couple of the Legion coins and... some paper? That was odd, I didn't remember leaving any notes for myself. So I grabbed it, and tried to get a look at it in the dim light.

"What's that?" I barely heard Cass over the noise of the music and the crowd. She leaned in closer to get a better look as I started to unfold it.

"I think it's something Orris' had on him when he got blown apart..." I said, trying to get a better look at it in the dim light.

* * *

_Oh, there's blackjack and poker and the roulette wheel!_

_A fortune won and lost on ev'ry deal!_

_All you need's a strong heart and a nerve of steel!_

_Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas!_

* * *

I couldn't really make out many details on the scrap of paper... but I could make out enough. Orris name, several times. The words "payment," "information," "espionage," and "sabotage." A stamp of a red bull in the upper right hand corner. And a name scrawled on the bottom:

Vulpes Inculta.

I folded the paper back up and put it in my pocket.

"What's up? What's wrong?" Cass asked, taking another swig of whiskey. I didn't answer. My mind was still going over what I'd just seen written on that paper that I didn't even realize I'd had. If nothing else, now I knew why someone would've wanted to kill Orris... but even if he was an informant for the Legion, and this heavily implied he was, all it did was just raise more questions than it answered.

So, for the moment, I decided to ignore the gears turning in my head... and just listen to the music.

* * *

_I'm gonna give it ev'rything I've got!_

_Lady luck please, let the dice stay hot!_

_Let me shoot a seven with ev'ry shot!_

_Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas!_

_Viva!_

_Viva!_

_Las Vegas!_


	28. Chapter 27: Bitter Springs

**Chapter 27: Bitter Springs**

* * *

_You're listening to Radio New Vegas. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas, and you look extraordinarily beautiful tonight. Got a little Dean Martin coming up later on in the program, but right now its time for a little news. Violence in Freeside reached an all time high earlier today, with a shootout between several unidentified parties taking place near the Cerulean Train Station. It's unknown if anyone was killed, but I've received several reports that the firefight was broken up by a currently unidentified third party, driving a blue Corvega. The news this hour has been brought to you by The Silver Rush: Feel the rush of a warm laser in your hands. Up next is a classic Johnny Cash song. "I Forgot To Remember To Forget," only on Radio New Vegas._

* * *

The party was a lot more fun that I was expecting. There was dancing, there was music, there was alcohol... it was almost enough to make you forget that this whole kerfuffle started in violence. Almost. Even I, the morose motherfucker that I am most of the time, had fun. ED-E was merrily buzzing around the ceiling, beeping in time to the music. I think I even saw Julie and a couple of other Followers that the Kings had invited cut loose and let their hair down a bit. Well... figuratively speaking, in Julie's case.

By the time we decided to leave, it was just a little after midnight or so. ED-E was hovering alongside my car as I drove us back to the 38, and I could swear I heard a few of the songs The King had sung being broadcast from his speaker. Arcade was sitting in the passenger seat, and surprisingly enough not all that drunk. Cass and Veronica, on the other hand... well, the only reason either of them had been able to get back to the car was because they'd been leaning on each other, and despite the fact they were both in the backseat, neither of them had let go. So the two of them were hanging off each other, each with bottles of booze in hand, drunkenly singing off-key drinking songs in the backseat of my car.

"So, Arcade..." I said, trying to ignore the two drunks in the back for the moment. "How was your day?"

"Not as interesting as yours, I'd wager," Arcade smirked back at me. "Speaking of, did you figure out anything about Orris yet?"

"Oh! Yeah, hang on..." I pulled the scrap of paper from before out of my pocket and handed it to Arcade. "I think I must have grabbed this along with the cash, because I didn't even know I had it until after The King started singing. I didn't get a good look at, but I think I got the gist - I think Orris was a Legion spy or an informant or something. Let's see what you make of it." Arcade studied the paper intently, pushing his glasses further up his nose. He made a "hmm..." sound before turning back to me.

"This is... yeah, this is pretty cut and dry. I could be wrong, but I think this is the Legion's version of a receipt. It's documenting 'payment for services rendered,' in this case, information about NCR movements within the Strip and Freeside, sabotaging shipments of supplies..." I just nodded as he spoke.

"Yeah, that's about what I thought," I said, driving us past the Strip's front gate. "At least now we know why someone would want to kill that idiot."

"Maybe..." Arcade handed the paper back to me

"Maybe?" I asked as I turned into the Lucky 38's underground car park. "What do you mean? You said yourself, it's pretty cut and dry."

"Well, exactly." I just raised an eyebrow, and he continued. "Maybe I'm overthinking things, but doesn't it seem a bit obvious? A little too convenient, maybe?"

"You think it might be a setup?" I asked, parking the car and killing the engine. "Like, someone planted it on him, make whoever found the body think he's Legion?" I got out of the car, and Arcade followed suit; so did Veronica and Cass, still drunkenly singing a bit of a ways behind us as we walked.

"Well, yeah. A real spy wouldn't be so careless as to leave something incriminating like that on their person." I thought about that. I didn't really know much about spies, much less Legion spies, but I had to agree with Arcade just on the grounds of common sense. It would probably be safe to assume that, yes, a real spy wouldn't be that careless. But there was something else that was bothering me.

"Hang on, if it was a plant, then the assassin would've been the one to have planted it, yes?" Arcade nodded. "So, why go to all the trouble of something like that, and then use a weapon that has a chance of turning the target into a pile of ash, or a puddle of goo?"

I didn't really get a chance to hear Arcade's response, because we were suddenly interrupted at that point by Veronica tossing an arm around my neck, and Cass doing the same to Arcade.

"C'mon boys!" Cass shouted, her face flush and her mouth open in a wide smile. "Sing along! 'Well we fell inta prison, 'bout a quarter ta t'ree, where ah found in mah cell a glass waitin' fer me! So ah filled what was empty, an' ah pulled up a stool! But he stood inna corner, th' ol devil wouldn't move! He said "Ya drink when yer lonely." No ah drink when I want! He said "You'll never be sober," Sure, why would I want that? Ah only drink t'be merry, but unfortunATELEEEEEEEY! Ah'm in th' wrong prison cell an' th' wrong compAAAAANYYYY!'"

We must have looked quite a ridiculous sight, the two of us being led along into the 38 by the two singing drunks. I'm not ashamed to admit, I started singing along as well. I can appreciate a good drinking song, though I think Arcade stayed quiet. ED-E flew skyward as we walked up the stairs and into the 38, seemingly determined to get to the suite before us.

"Oh hey, w're here..." Cass said as we walked into the casino. She stumbled on one of the steps, and reflexively grabbed at her hat. Veronica moved to steady her, and Cass just started laughing. "Man, that step came outta nowhere! Did'ja see that?" Veronica laughed with her and the two of them stumbled into the elevator. I just shook my head and chuckled to myself as Arcade and I followed suit.

"So, V, ah've been wond'rin'..." Cass leaned against the back wall of the elevator and tipped her hat back. "Why're y'always wearing that hood've yers?" Veronica was leaning against the adjacent wall of the elevator, and just blinked a few times at that question.

"Sorry?" She reached up and tugged at the edges of her hood, pulling it closer to her head. "What's wrong with m'hood?"

"Nothin', s'jus'... th' thing must be itchy as all hell. Plus, t'must be way too hot out inna desert sun," Cass took another swig of whiskey, and mumbled into the bottle "Ah've jus' never seen yer hair..." I'm not sure Veronica heard that last bit. Even so, Veronica looked embarrassed. In fact, amazingly enough, her face flushed into an even deeper shade of red.

"I... I just... I mean... that is to say... um..." She clutched at her hood even tighter. "It's... um, it's silly. You'll laugh."

"I promise we won't laugh," Arcade said.

"Arcade promises he won't laugh," I added.

"I just don't like people looking at my hair, that's all," Veronica eventually blurted out. The elevator was silent for a minute or two as it trundled upwards.

"S'that it?" Cass asked. Before she got an answer, the elevator dinged and the door slid open. I was just about to step out when I came face to face with Boone. As always, he was wearing his sunglasses and 1st Recon beret; however, strapped to his back was the camo pattern DKS-501, as well as a backpack large enough to reasonably accommodate a set of armor. He had a revolver and gun belt strapped to his hip, and his bowie knife was strapped to his boot. Wherever he was planning on going, it looked like he was prepping for a fight. Then again, that was kind of par for the course with Boone.

"Oh," was all he said. He stepped out of the way to let us pass. Arcade was the first out, followed by Cass and Veronica, who were both still drunkenly leaning against each other to keep upright.

"Seriously, tho'," I heard Cass say as the two of them staggered down the hall. "Wha's th' problem wit' yer hair?" I stepped out of the elevator after them, but Boone just kept staring at me from behind his sunglasses.

"Hey man," I said. "What's up?"

"I thought some more about what you said last night," he stated simply, hiking his rifle up his shoulder. "And I think maybe you're right."

"Right? Right about what?" I asked after Boone remained silent.

"I think... maybe I should go to Bitter Springs. I don't know what I'm hoping to find there... but I just think I should go."

"Really?" I thought back to the night before, and vaguely recalled saying something to that effect. "What changed your mind?"

"Nothing," he replied almost automatically. After a seconds pause, he added: "Dream." Boone sighed. "Just... tired of thinking about it."

"So, what? Were you gonna walk there or something?" Judging by his appearance, I figured that was exactly his plan.

"If I have to."

"You know, if you want I can give you a lift, man," I checked the location of Bitter Springs on my Pip Boy. "It's not that far - a little under an hour's drive, probably. Sound good?" Boone just slowly started nodding.

"Yeah. Thanks," the two of us walked into the elevator, and right before the doors closed, he added "I hope this isn't a mistake."

* * *

Riding with Boone is a very quiet experience. It was almost like how it was before coming to the Mojave - driving in silence with only the sound of the engine to keep me company. In a way, I kind of admired him for his silent, stoic nature. He didn't waste words or breath on unnecessary words or small talk. Whenever he spoke, it was always because he actually had something to say.

By the time we got close to Bitter Springs, it was just shy of one in the morning. Boone had been sitting in the passenger seat, keeping the butt of his sniper rifle in the footwell and clutching the barrel while silently keeping watch. ED-E was buzzing alongside the car; when the two of us had left the 38, ED-E had followed. Because it was so late, part of me felt I should've been more tired than I was. I didn't really have time to dwell on it, however, because Boone suddenly spoke up.

"We're here."

As soon as the car came to a stop, Boone practically leaped out, leaving his pack in the backseat of my car. I got out of the car as well, and ED-E and I followed him up a winding dirt path that led into a nearby rocky outcrop. Boone came to a halt right in front of what appeared to be a small tent city, dimly illuminated by only about half a dozen lights scattered around random places. In front of us was a sign: Bitter Springs Refugee Camp. Up the hill, I saw more tents, and a flagpole complete with an NCR flag gently flapping in the nighttime breeze. I didn't see any people walking around, which wasn't surprising, given the time. The few I did see were all sleeping on filthy mattresses under awnings or in tents, lying under dirty brown blankets.

"This is the place," Boone said after a few seconds spent staring at the camp. "We got sent here from Camp Golf, looking for some Khans who'd been harassing one of our settlements. I guess one of the settlers was connected, because we sent everything we had. We figured this was a gang hideout, but..." Boone paused, clenching his jaw. "They'd led us to their home."

When Boone said that, I took another look at all the tents... and I realized a lot of them were the Mongol style octagon tents that the Great Khans seemed to favor. There were plenty army-green tents set up by the NCR, and just as many awnings trying to pass for tents, but now that Boone had pointed it out, the connection became as clear as day. He turned back to me.

"There's a ridge called Coyote Tail on the south side. That's where command ordered 1st Recon to set up shop."

* * *

The ridge he led me to wasn't all that far from where I'd parked my car - it was probably less than an eighth of a mile south. By the time I caught up with Boone, he was standing at the top of the ridge, looking east. I joined him on one side, and ED-E hovered closeby.

"Canyon 37," he said as soon as I got within earshot. I looked down, and saw a small winding path, between this ridge, and another like it a little ways away. "That's what the NCR calls the pass down there. It was the Khans' only escape route, so we set up here to guard it while the main force attacked from the front. Standing orders were to shoot on sight," He sighed, and knelt down, picking up a rifle casing half buried in the dirt. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what he was going to say next... but I asked anyway.

"So... what happened?"

"Main force got spotted too soon. We heard shooting. Then Khans started coming through Canyon 37 in bunches, but... it was all wrong, though. Women... children... elderly..." Boone stopped talking for a minute, just staring at the rifle casing in his fingers. "Wounded started coming through, too. We radioed to confirm our orders, but... command just... they just didn't _get_ what we were seeing. They told us to shoot till we were out of ammo. So. That's what we did."

Suddenly, everything about Boone made so much more sense.

"That... hell, man," I tried to think of something to say. "I'd be an awful soldier. I don't think I could've gone through with following an order like that." Boone just scoffed a bit, but his expression didn't change.

"Maybe, at one point, I wouldn't have pulled the trigger either..." He sighed heavily. "But I guess that's why they train you. Break you down... till you're automatic. Thing is, at the time? I kept telling myself 'I followed my orders. I did what I was supposed to do as a soldier.' But I'm not a soldier anymore. And those rules don't seem like much of an excuse, now." Boone shook his head, and slowly stood back up. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the empty rifle casing down into the canyon. "I'm sorry," he said finally, turning back to me. "I don't know why we're here. Thought maybe it'd help me see things better."

"Do you want to head back?" I asked. Boone just shook his head.

"No. I'd like to camp here for the night. Think some things over."

"Are you sure?" I asked. Boone nodded.

"Why do you think I brought a bedroll with me?"

* * *

_Darkness surrounded me... but it wasn't absolute. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, or the ground beneath me, but off in the distance I could see the darkened outlines of mountains. Above me, I saw a sky filled with boiling, rolling clouds, lit up from within by lightning. The sky flashed constantly, and the delicate sound of thunder boomed directly overhead. However, there was another sound that caught my ear: a soft clicking noise, almost like the ticking of a watch. I fumbled in the darkness until I found my Pip Boy, my fingers searching the outer casing..._

_There was a soft mechanical whine and the screen of the Pip Boy lit up when I found the button, and an almost radioactive green glow bathed the land around me. Below my feet, I saw very fine sand, so I started to walk towards the noise, using my Pip Boy to light my way. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for... but I didn't immediately know what I was looking at._

_Hovering about a foot off the ground was a large cube, about two feet across with nine multicolored squares on each face. The faces of the cube were rearranging themselves, and apparently that movement was making the clicking noise. I felt like I recognized it from somewhere, but couldn't place it - and then it hit me: the boy sitting under the overpass at the 188 trading post. He had been playing with the same kind of puzzle cube, only smaller. He'd given it to me, and now it was resting on the dashboard of my car._

_The puzzle cube clicked one final time, and all the colors matched on every face. It spun on its axis, and slowly began to sink into the sand. I watched it descend into the fine sand like a stone being dropped into water... and in its place, I saw the silhouette of a man standing just outside the Pip Boy's radius of light._

_"Hello?" I asked, trying to shine the light to get a better view at the silhouette. There was a soft orange glow by his head, and a trail of smoke expanded outwards._

_"Hello, Courier," a very familiar voice said out of the darkness. The figure stepped forward, and his black and white checkered jacket became visible._

_"Benny," I lowered my Pip Boy, but he still stayed illuminated. He just kept smoking. "I'm guessing you're responsible for all this?" I waved a hand around at the landscape. Benny just shrugged._

_"Not really. I'm just here to deliver a message." The smoke from his cigarette hung around his head and refused to dissipate._

_"Hey, I'm the Courier. Delivering messages is my job," I said. Benny just smirked._

_"I just want to make sure you understand what you're becoming. Because the sooner you realize, the sooner you see, and the faster you accept and understand, the more control you'll have over your own fate," he said. I started walking towards him, but he didn't get any closer, despite the fact that he wasn't moving._

_"So, what am I becoming, then?" Benny smirked, and took another draw from his cigarette._

_"You're a weapon, Courier," he stated simply. "You are becoming a person of mass destruction. And you'll need to be, if you're going to survive the coming storms." My mind wander__ed back to the child at the 188, and his cryptic message about the NCR and Legion..._

_"The Bull and Bear over the dam... A storm of blood will flood the desert, not purify it..." I said, trying to repeat what I could remember of what he'd said. Benny smiled and shook his head slightly._

_"That's just the inevitable storm. The one you can't stop. But there are more than two players at the table... all placing bets... all will lose in different ways. All of them will try and use you to further their own ends. And there are so many more storms on their way..."_

_As Benny spoke, thunder boomed over our heads. Lightning lit up the sky, and the clouds started to slowly change color. The sea of clouds churned, and the sky turned a deep, blood red. There was another boom of thunder, this time loud enough to cause the ground beneath me to shake... wait, no... that wasn't thunder._

_Before I knew what was happening, the sand beneath my feet shifted, and the very ground started to fall away - or was the ground beneath my feet rising? Either way, I nearly lost my balance, but steadied myself, and I soon found myself standing in the middle of a hexagonal platform. Benny was standing on a similar hexagon several feet away, and I could see that it was a massive prism-shaped pillar, made out of a metal I didn't recognize. On the side, I could just barely make out some writing in large, white block letters: "X-66"_

_Without warning, the thunder stopped, but I could still see lightning - flashes of bright blue lightning arcing below me in the darkness. The blood red clouds continued to boil, but empty patches were emerging, revealing a sky filled with stars, and a full moon hanging directly overhead. From behind the mountains all around us, I saw points of light emerge that I thought were stars at first... but then they got larger, and closer, and started to stretch themselves out. In an instant, spears of fire rocketed directly overhead, many of them pushing aside the blood clouds, leaving streaks of fiery black smoke in their wake. One of them flew perilously close to Benny and myself, and I ducked out of reflex. I was able to look up just in time, however, to see what it was: an old world ICBM, tipped with a nuclear warhead, and emblazoned on the side with an image of the flag of the United States._

_More missiles and _rockets streaked and crisscrossed around the night sky... there was no end to them. They just kept coming. And that was when I realized the clouds had parted enough to make the moon entirely visible... and something was happening. It started off as just a few, but after only _a few seconds I saw hundreds... thousands... maybe even millions of lights, all moving away from the moon and towards the Earth. It looked like the moon was ripping itself apart__, big chunks breaking__ off and falling away. Before I could figure out what it all meant, there was a blinding flash, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I want to say that it looked like the sun rising, but it was so much brighter than the sun... it felt like my eyes were being burned away. The noise was so great to go along with the flash, I nearly went deaf. Waves of immense heat and wind washed over me, ripping at my skin and threatening to blow me off the hexagonal prism of metal._

_When my vision returned, all I could see was fire... and Benny. He was still standing there, still smoking, but he was silhouetted from behind by the unmistakable sight of a mushroom cloud. The cloud was still on fire as it continued upward and outward, growing ever larger, consuming everything in its path. I had never seen an actual nuclear detonation before. I'd only ever read descriptions, or seen pictures and grainy video from old holotapes, but... it just couldn't compare. It was absolutely the most terrifying, the most horrific, and the most... overwhelming thing I'd ever seen..._

_"All of these storms are on their way, Sheason," Benny said at last, apparently not bothered at all by the nuclear warhead that had just detonated behind him. "And the question remains - will you possess the strength to stem the tide, when the time comes?"_

* * *

My eyes cracked open. Everything was hazy, but I realized right away that I wasn't dreaming any longer. It was still mostly dark; out of the corner of my eyes, I could see just the tiniest bit of light, but it was the sort of light that was only enough to make you realize you couldn't actually see. I felt a hand on my shoulder, trying to shake me awake.

"Sheason," I heard Boone's voice through the fog. "Sheason, get up." It took me a few seconds to get my bearings - I was sitting in the drivers seat of my car, which made sense, since that's where I'd fallen asleep.

"Whu- huh?" I tried to force myself awake - and it suddenly became a lot easier. My vision cleared enough for me to see a gas mask with glowing green lenses staring at me from beneath a combat helmet. Boone was in full combat armor - something was very wrong.

"Something's wrong," he said, mirroring my thoughts. "Got a group coming our way. Looks like a Legion raiding party." If seeing Boone in full kit was like a splash of water on my face, that was like punch in the side of the head. I grabbed Roscoe and That Gun, which had been sitting on the passenger seat, and checked them both to make sure they were loaded while I practically leapt out of the car.

"It's big," Boone continued, taking a few steps towards Coyote Tail ridge. "Might be too big. Even for us." Boone didn't sound worried... or surprised in the least. He sort of sounded at peace with the idea of a pack of Legion raiders too big for us to handle. He turned back to me, his rifle at the ready. "If you want out, I won't blame you. But I'm going to stay. See if I can hold them off."

"Let me put it to you like this," I popped the lid on my trunk and pulled out Pinpoint, the hunting rifle I'd bought from the Gun Runners last week, along with a few spare ammo magazines. Boone made a satisfied "Hurm," noise at that. I checked the rifle to make sure it was loaded. "You don't sound surprised about this." Boone shook his head.

"I'm not. Always figured this was how it was gonna end for me. Just didn't know when. That night you showed up in Novac... I had a feeling I was supposed to go with you. That it was time to end all this. And now I know..." That clinched it, then. Boone thought tonight was the night he was going to die. After hearing about his past, I couldn't really blame him... but even so, I tried to steer him away from that topic of conversation.

"So, why would they come to Bitter Springs?"

"Easy target for grabbing slaves," Boone said matter-of-factly. "Lots of displaced refugees no one will miss, token resistance as defense. I don't think they're here for us, if that's what you're getting at." He looked off in the distance, and I tried to follow his gaze; heading toward us, at a rather disquieting pace, were about two dozen points of lights in the darkness. "Too bad. Would've made me feel better if they were."

"If nothing else, it saves us the trouble of finding them," I said. Boone actually laughed at that. Just once, but it was still a laugh.

"If only it was this easy all the time."

"So, what are we waiting for?" As if in response, Boone moved off and started running up the path towards Bitter Springs. I followed suit, with ED-E floating behind me. When we finally got to the entrance of the camp, the lights were still dimly lit, and I still didn't see anyone awake. I didn't even see any NCR troops around. Off in the distance, I hearD dogs - or it could have been wolves - start barking. The lights off in the distance were getting closer.

"I'll start thinning them out," I said, chambering a round into Pinpoint, kneeling down, and looking through the rifle's scope. "Give you time to find the best perch." I didn't hear a response from Boone; it's entirely possible he had already left by the time I started speaking. Looking through the crosshairs, I could see the first of the Legion troops come into view: it was a group of four troopers and two mangy dogs running up the path towards the camp. These Legionnaires were wearing sports equipment, unlike the troops at Caesar's Fort.

I exhaled slowly, and calmly slipped into V.A.T.S.

Through the scope, I watched as the Legion troops fell each time I pulled the trigger. One by one, they tumbled backwards before they even got close. The shots from Pinpoint were muffled, but not completely silent. Then again, ED-E zooming along overhead, blasting lasers at the incoming dogs probably wasn't subtle either. And then I heard the unmistakable boom of Boone's sniper rifle.

With the last bullet of Pinpoint's first magazine, I killed a Legionnaire carrying one of the torches, so I pulled it out and looked around as I reached for a fresh mag. What I saw off to my left was surprising however - Boone was walking towards the Legion troops, firing with his massive gun as he made his way down the hill.

I reloaded as quickly as possible, but a ricocheting bullet impacted the ground near my feet. That's my warning that I'm not moving enough. So I ran to a decent piece of cover, reloading as I went. When I was finally able to look down the scope again, I couldn't see any more Legion troops armed only with machetes; now they were starting to shoot back.

Three more V.A.T.S. shots, and three more Legion troops fell. I looked away from the scope again, to get a better idea of how we were doing. ED-E was blasting away, drawing quite a lot of fire but none of the Legion's shots even seemed to be affecting the robot. Boone on the other hand...

He'd closed with a group of Legion troops; all but one of them were dead, and Boone had abandoned his rifle and was locked in a dangerous melee with the last remaining Legionnaire. Closing fast on him, however, I could see two of the Legion mongrels prowling around and getting ready to flank him.

I swung the rifle around, and carefully took aim through the scope. V.A.T.S. was informing me through my ear that my action points had been depleted, so I had no help with this one. The dog closest to me reared back, readying to leap at Boone; I led the rifle, trying to anticipate where it was going to be, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. There was a muffled bang, the dog leapt, and half a second later it was knocked off course and smashed its face against the ground.

I tried to find the next dog, and my scope fell on Boone; he was too busy smashing the forehead of his helmet into the face of the Legionnaire to notice the dog perched on the rocks above him, ready to pounce. Another muffled bang, and the rocks behind the mongrel were hit with splash of red. I turned my attention back to Boone; he'd finally dispatched the Legion soldier by shoving a bowie knife in his neck.

I heard the sounds of boots tromping against the ground, getting closer. I glanced at the Pip Boy's radar, and several red pips were closing on my position, fast. That was when I realized: my current position was both very good and potentially very bad. On the one hand, because of the terrain they could only really come at me from one way, so I couldn't get flanked. On the minus side, I was backed up into a corner, which meant I wouldn't be able to run if things went tits up. I hoped I had enough ammo left... because the fight had just switched from turkey shoot, to fight or die.

I swung the rifle around towards the direction of the red pips on my radar, and braced myself for incoming Legion. The first of them came from around a rocky outcrop; he was carrying a hunting shotgun, and started leveling it as soon as he saw me. Time slowed for just a moment as I let V.A.T.S. take over. I squeezed the trigger, and the Legion soldier fell backwards, a small burst of blood erupting from his neck.

I pulled the bolt back, and tried to push it back in place, but it was frozen solid. It made sense - even with the best bolt action rifles, you fire it constantly and the heat will make the gun jam. I still swore though.

Another Legionnaire was running towards me with a 10mm submachine gun, so I had to act fast. I dropped Pinpoint and grabbed Roscoe from its holster on my hip and popped off as many shots as I could right at his chest. When he fell, he caused the Legionnaire behind him to stumble long enough for me to land a lucky shot right in the middle of his forehead.

There was a gnashing, snarling sound, and before I realized what was going on, a blurry mass of fur, claws and teeth leaped over the still falling Legion soldier and directly at me. As quickly as I could, I tried to dodge out of the way, but I wasn't quite fast enough, and I felt the dog's claws tear through my jeans and slash across my right leg. It was close enough to be in striking distance, though, so I punched it as hard as I could in the side of its head with my left fist. It staggered backwards long enough for me to aim with Roscoe and pull the trigger.

I looked up again, and one more Legion soldier - this one wearing a helmet topped with a crest of long, black feathers and carrying a lever action rifle - was bearing down on me. I tried to use V.A.T.S., but as I leveled Roscoe I heard a voice in my ear inform me: "Unable to perform action; please reload weapon before using V.A.T.S." I had to think fast, so I reared back with the hand holding Roscoe, pushed and held the magazine release button, and pushed the butt of my pistol towards Legionnaire as hard as I could. The magazine flew out of the bottom of the pistol, and hit the soldier in the middle of his face. There was a cracking sound in the air and he dropped the rifle to clutch at his face; I couldn't tell if the lens on his goggles cracked, of if it was his nose. Honestly, I didn't really care. I pulled That Gun out of the back of my trousers with my left hand and fired, practically point blank.

I was hoping that was the end of it, but of course, I wasn't that lucky. From the top of one of the rocks that kept them coming at me from the same direction, another one of the Legion mongrels leapt down towards me before I could get out of the way. The dog hit me in the chest and knocked me off my feet; my grip on Roscoe loosened, and I could feel the dog tearing at my shoulders, trying to rip its way through my leather jacket. With my newly freed hand, I reached up as quick as I could and grabbed at the dogs neck to keep him from ripping my head to bits; just in time, too, because the dogs muzzle stopped inches from my face. All I saw was a mass of teeth, as I tried to ignore all the spittle flying into my vision and the rank smell of hot breath blasting into my nose. I buried the barrel of That Gun deep into the gut of the dog and pulled the trigger as many times as I could. The dog whined and stopped struggling. I shoved the mutt off of me, pushing it with all my strength, and, very slowly, got back on my feet.

For a minute or two, the only thing I could hear was my own heavy breathing echoing in my ears. But then, very softly, I heard victorious marching music wafting from an eyebot's speaker grille. I looked up, and there was ED-E, who let off one final laser blast before quieting down and hovering closer to head height. I picked up Roscoe and Pinpoint, and slowly walked over the dead Legion troops and dogs, and out in the open. I didn't see any more Legion troops heading up towards Bitter Springs... just a lot of bodies. I finally started to hear shouting from people within the camp, but no alarms and no more gunshots. The sun was just now starting to peer over the mountains to the East.

A few dozen yards away, Boone was standing amid a pile of bodies, and even from my distance I could see him breathing heavily and looking around at the dead Legion around him. So I slowly made my way towards him.

"I think we're clear," I said. When I got closer, I saw that the sleeve of his duster on the inside of his arm was slightly torn, and I could see flecks of fresh blood. "You're hit. You're bleedin', man," I said, stating the obvious. "You alright?"

"Yeah... I'm..." Boone continued to look around at the bodies. I didn't know if he was just looking at the corpses, or looking for his rifle. "No, I'm not.." He paused for a minute, and then started to shake his head. He reached up, I heard a clasp snap open, and he took off his helmet, dropping it at his feet. He opened his eyes and ran a gloved hand over his buzzed hair.

"We made it through. Not sure what to make of that..." He didn't sound or look angry, or relieved, or any of the emotions I might have expected from him. He just seemed... almost confused is probably the best word.

"C'mon man. You underestimated us. We're a couple of grade-A badasses, and this just proves it," I said. ED-E beeped a few times behind me, seemingly in agreement.

"Yeah... Guess I did. I figured whatever we could handle, this time the Legion was going to send more." Boone looked up at me, for the first time since I'd met him without his glasses. There was one overwhelming emotion that escaped through his eyes: sheer, utter exhaustion. "I should have died here a long time ago. When I spotted the Legionaries... I thought I finally understood. Things were finally going to even out. I could feel the end coming. I was ready for it." I stepped forward, ready to try and talk some sense into him, when Boone just dropped to his knees and hung his head. "But I'm still here. Nothing's changed... and I'm still waiting."

"Listen, Boone," I knelt down, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "No one is judging you or punishing you. Especially since it wasn't your fault. Things just... happen," As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Things just happen? What kind of pathetic line was that?

"If that's how it is, there's not a lot of comfort in knowing it," Boone just kept slowly shaking his head, staring down without really looking at anything. "I just... I don't know what I'm supposed to do about all this."

"Boone, I want you to really listen to me. You can't take back what you've done, I know that. You know that. But sometimes..." I tried to think of something that might help in some way. "Sometimes your regrets can set you on a better path. I mean... your regrets brought us here, didn't they?"

"I..." Boone's expression softened, for the first time since I'd met him. "I guess they did. One less Legion raiding party running loose now... and that's never a bad thing. Still... I don't know, it still feels like I'm living on borrowed time." Boone reached out, and took hold of his dropped helmet, turning it over in his hands until he was looking at his reflection in the green lenses. And suddenly... he no longer looked confused.

"You know what?" He finally said. "Now I'm thinking about it... I don't see any reason not to take a lot more of those sons of bitches with me."

"It's not your time yet, Boone. It's up to you to decide what you want to do with the time you have left." He nodded in agreement.

"You got a point. There are still some things I can do before all this is over."

"There's plenty you can do still. Now c'mon, let's get that arm of yours cleaned up," I said, encouraging him to get up. He looked up, towards the East, and my gaze followed his; he was looking at the rising sun. "It's the dawn of a new day."

"You got that right."


	29. Chapter 28: Dog Days

Chapter 28: Dog Days

* * *

_Good morning listeners, and welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas show on Radio New Vegas. It looks like it's going to be another beautiful day in the Mojave Wasteland. Partly cloudy skies, with highs of 80º, and lows hovering around 69º. A word of warning for anyone travelling along the Long 15 south of Primm and the Nipton Highway: reports of sandstorms spilling over from the Divide the last few days have increased with no signs of letting up, so be sure to wear goggles and air filters if you've got them. Got more classics coming to you over the airwaves, so stay tuned._

* * *

Boone and I left Bitter Springs before any of the NCR troops - the few that were there - could check to see what all the yelling and gunshots and general commotion had been about. Were they confused by the three dozen or so Legion bodies and dead dogs surrounding the camp, and the blue Corvega speeding away back to New Vegas?

Maybe. Frankly, I didn't care. At the moment, all I wanted to do was to just get back to the Lucky 38, and get at least one or two more hours of sleep before going back to see The King.

Of course, if I'd had my way, we wouldn't have left Bitter Springs as fast as we did. I suggested to Boone that we see if there was a doctor in the camp - or, at the very least, use the first aid kit in my trunk before setting off again. But Boone would have none of it. He didn't want to deal with any of the NCR troops. Too much paperwork, apparently.

So, in the end, we compromised. I was driving the two of us back to Vegas, with ED-E flying alongside, while Boone was in the backseat, trying to administer first aid on himself with a pair of tweezers, a roll of cloth bandages, a pair of scissors, and a couple stimpacks.

"You're cleaning that up," I said, really only half joking as I glanced back at him. Boone just chuckled. He was making an absolute mess. The wound on his arm apparently had been a ricochet from a bullet that bounced off his chest plate, and it really only amounted to a graze. But he still had to pull a few chunks of metal out of his arm before using a stimpack, and he was bleeding everywhere.

When we eventually reached the Lucky 38, the adrenaline that had kept me going since the fighting started had finally worn off. I'm just glad it hadn't evaporated while I was still driving. Waking up to find my car had been put in a ditch because I fell asleep at the wheel would not have been how I wanted to spend a Saturday. I was absolutely exhausted. Even Boone looked tired, and that's saying a lot.

The elevator eventually dinged and, thankfully, no one was there to greet me as the two of us exited into the suite.

"I need a shower. And sleep," Boone said, scratching at the dressing he'd wrapped around his wounded arm. At the time, I'd wondered why he'd bothered with a bandage, since the stimpack should've healed the wound over completely. It made much more sense now.

"Yeah... no offense man, but you look like you need it," I said, trying to keep my eyes open a while longer. "You look like you've been fighting a bear or something."

"Or a bull," It looked like Boone tried to grin, but it ended up being more like a grimace. It took me a second for my exhausted brain to get that, and the two of us chuckled half-heartedly.

"I'll see you in the morning," I shuffled towards my room, and Boone headed for the shower.

"It is morning," he said simply. I just sighed.

"Ugh... you know what I mean," And with that, I shut the door behind me.

I didn't even make it to the bed before I collapsed.

* * *

Next thing I knew, I was coughing myself awake, trying to get the taste of 200 year old carpet out of my mouth.

It took me a minute to get my bearings... and the first thing I did was breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn't had another nightmare, which made me feel all kinds of grateful. They were really starting to get on my nerves, with how often they were happening. Second thing I did was check the time: a little after 10:30 in the morning. Which means I did get a little sleep. Just.

I entered the hallway of the suite, closing my bedroom door behind me and still trying to wake up. I heard another softer click of a door from across the hall opening up. It was the door to Veronica's room... but Cass was the one who walked out.

That woke me up pretty quick.

She wasn't wearing her hat or her leather jacket, and she was looking down, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt. She looked up, saw me, and froze. I did my best to hold back a smile. I'm pretty sure I failed miserably. Cass' face flushed immediately, and her cheeks turned very nearly the same shade as her hair.

"Morning," I said breaking the silence.

"Uh... hey," was her response, along with hastily doing up a few more buttons. I could've been mistaken, but it looked like she buttoned it up slightly higher than she usually did. I could barely see the pendant around her neck.

"Have fun last night?" I asked, smirking a little.

"I.. er.. uh..." Cass cleared her throat, licked her lips, and put on her best poker face. "Yep. I did."

"Well. Glad somebody had fun last night, at least. My night consisted of violence against the Legion with Boone. I'd be prepared to bet that you had a better time than I did. I was gonna say you probably got more sleep, but..." I just flashed a grin and chuckled. Cass' poker face evaporated immediately, and she sort of blinked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh... are ya... I mean... yer not..." She sort of trailed off a bit, and ran a hand through her untied red hair. She looked a little embarrassed. For some reason.

"I'm not what?" I asked. Part of me wanted to think that... but no, that couldn't be what was going on. There were too many things going on for THAT to be the case. I mean, for one thing, she and Veronica had quite obviously just gotten together. So, no sense thinking THAT was the reason she was embarrassed. For another, I wasn't fully awake yet. I was probably just picking up on some physical cues or body language that weren't actually there. Plus, I did recall something she'd said the day I met her: _"__Just so we're clear, nothin' – an I do mean nothin' – is ever gonna happen 'tween us. You'd best respect that."_

And you know, that seemed pretty unequivocal at the time.

"I- I jus'..." Cass sighed and shook her head. "Nev'rmind. I'm gonna get some coffee," And with that, she walked past me into the kitchen. I just shrugged, and pushed the button to call the elevator.

"Well. That was awkward."

* * *

"Hey, Courier," Vince was leaning against the front door of The Kings' place and smoking when I rocked up. "You lookin' for The King, man?" I nodded.

"Yeah, he said he wanted to see me again. He in?"

"I think so," He tossed his cigarette aside, and led me inside. The lobby had several more empty bottles of booze scattered around than I remembered... Vince leaped over the counter, ducked behind it, and pulled out a few beers, one of which he slid across the counter in my direction. "Grab a drink, make yourself comfortable. I'm gonna go find The King, it shouldn't be too long."

As it happened, I didn't have to wait any time at all; The King walked in from the door on the opposite wall. He was wearing a pair of black trousers, a black jacket, and a red collared shirt that was only mostly buttoned.

"Hey Vince," The King and Vince greeted each other with some complicated looking hand gestures - some kind of secret handshake, I guess - and Vince handed him a beer. "What's the haps, man?"

"That Courier's here to see you, boss." The King turned to me and smiled, grasping my hand and attempting that same handshake... thing. I'll be honest, I couldn't really follow it, and I'm pretty sure I screwed it up.

"Hey, Sheason. C'mon, have a beer," He nodded to Vince, who tossed The King a bottle. "Hell of a party last night, wasn't it?" He tried handing me the beer, but I shook my head and waved it off.

"Actually, I'm here to talk business. Didn't you say last night you had something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"That's right!" He said, snapping his fingers. "Thank you, I'd nearly forgotten." And then, without warning, he let loose an ear-splittingly shrill whistle. Even Vince seemed to flinch at the sound. The King, meanwhile, kept talking like nothing had happened. "There's one last thing I wanted you to do. You know my dog, Rex?"

"I've noticed him, yes," I said, nodding.

"Well, thing is, he's been acting peculiar for some time now. I thought he might be sick, so I took him to the Followers..."

"Wait, hang on," I interrupted. "How can he get sick? Isn't he like a robot, or something?"

"It's not sick like the flu or nothin'," The King explained. "The doctors said his brain is bad... or, something. Thing is, they couldn't really do anything, because they don't have the tools to help him."

That sounds familiar, I thought. At that moment, the cybernetic German Shepherd bounded into the room, his arrival preceded by the sound of metal hitting wooden floorboards. The King kneeled down when Rex entered, and scratched his dog behind the ears; Rex nuzzled into his hand and whined affectionately.

"There's m'boy! Who's a good boy? That's right, you are!" He continued scratching his dog, but turned his attention back to me. "Anyway, thing of it is, I'd almost given up hope that Rexie would ever get better. Then, a couple of days ago, Julie found me and said she'd been looking into this in her spare time. Turns out, she got wind of a man who might be able to help - some kind of old scientist called Doc Henry or some such, living up north in Jacobstown."

"Jacobstown?" I asked, looking at my Pip Boy and bringing up the map. "I've never heard of that place."

"It's up in mountains. Peak of Mt. Charleston, I think. Just take highway 95 north till you hit Kyle Canyon road." I thought about that, and looked it up on the map. Kyle Canyon road was another name for state route 157, and the turnoff to that was a few miles south of the sacked caravan Cass and I had visited about a week earlier.

"Ok..." I turned off my Pip Boy and nodded. "So, what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, y'see, the reason I wanted your help was because I needed to make sure I could trust you. There's too much going on around here for me to make a trip like that, and I need all of my guys just to keep things settled in Freeside - especially now things with the NCR have changed."

"So, basically... you want me to take your dog to the vet?" I deadpanned. The King stood up, and looked me straight in the face, the most serious I'd ever seen him.

"Now hang on a minute. Rex here isn't just a dog. Rex and I have been through a lot together - almost as much as I've been through with Pace, and I've known him since we were kids. Rex is a friend - a good and loyal companion, and he's stayed by my side for years. Hell, he's probably older than I am."

"Seriously?" I asked. The King nodded.

"Oh yeah! One of the times I had Julie take a look at him, she said that some of his cybernetic parts were made in Denver."

"Denver? Don't you mean Dog Town?" I asked. I'd heard stories of Dog Town, an abandoned city of empty skyscrapers, packs of rabid and feral dogs, and radioactive sandstorms. I couldn't imagine anything being made there. The King just shook his head.

"No, I mean Denver. Julie said he was in a K-9 unit for the Denver police before the war."

I looked down at Rex, not knowing what to think after that little tidbit of trivia. Rex had been watching The King this whole time, panting with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, but when I looked at him, he looked back at me and shut his muzzle. Rex cocked his head to the side, and made a funny sort of noise, that made it sound like he was confused.

"If it's true, and he really is that old," The King patted Rex right behind the dog's brain case. "Then it'd be one hell of a shame for him to go out because of something pitiful." Slowly, I started to nod in agreement.

"Alright. I'll take him to see this Doc Henry. I'll make sure he gets better." The King's eyes lit up like a little kid, and he kneeled back down.

"Did ya hear that Rexie? You're finally gonna get better!" Rex seemed to understand, because he barked loudly, and started licking The King's face. "Ah-ha-ha, stop it boy! Ah, I can't thank you enough for this, Sheason."

"Don't mention it," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Is there anything I need to know before Rex and I set off?"

"Just a few things," The King nodded, getting up and leaning against the counter. "First, he hates rats. Can't stand the damn things. Giant rats, molerats, doesn't matter. He catches a whiff of one and he'll be off like a shot after them. Normally, he's pretty obedient, but you might have to chase him some if he goes after one of the little varmints."

"Sounds easy enough," I nodded. "Anything else?"

"Second, he doesn't like hats or the people wearing them."

The lobby was deathly silent as I tried to make sense of this information.

"Wait, wh-" The King just shook his head and shrugged.

"Don't ask. I have no idea why. Maybe because it rhymes with 'rats' or something like that. But that should be it, though. Other than the occasional bad spot when his brain starts hurting him, that is. But I'm hoping you'll see to that."

"I'll do my best." I said. The King looked down, and Rex seemed to pay attention as he spoke.

"Now Rex, Sheason here's gonna take you to a man who'll help get you fixed up. I want you to pay attention to him and follow him, alright? Think you can do that boy?" Rex whimpered, and pawed at The King with one of his front paws. "I know, I'm gonna miss you too, but it'll only be for a few days, I'm sure." The King looked back up to me. "Take care of my Rex now, y'hear?"

"Don't worry about it, I'll take care of him," I said. "C'mon Rex. Let's get you fixed up." Rex seemed to bark in agreement, and fell in step beside me as I walked towards the door. Before I quite got to the door, I heard a voice from behind me that made me stop in my tracks.

"Hey, King?" It was a similar sort of lazy drawl like The King, but unmistakably feminine. I turned around (as did Rex, interestingly enough), and saw a very busty blonde girl wearing... lets be honest, not much, leaning against the door frame. "Are you gonna c'mon back upstairs soon? Shelly an' I are gettin' bored..." The King chuckled a little, and gently took her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"Don't you worry yer silly little head 'bout nothin' doll, I'll be back in a bit. I've just got a bit more business down here to take care of first. Now g'wan, get outta here." He winked at her and she turned to leave - but right before she did, he swatted her ass. The King just chuckled, and he and Vince bumped fists.

I looked down to Rex by my side, and I could swear the dog was shaking his head.

* * *

When Rex and I got back to the Lucky 38 and the elevator doors opened to the suite, I could hear the sounds of food and people eating coming from the kitchen. I took one step, and suddenly a blur of brown cloth filled my vision, dancing and spinning around me.

"Hello, Veronica," I said, and the brown blur slowed down and flashed a wide smile at me. "You're looking extraordinarily chipper today." I wonder why, I thought with a thick veneer of sarcasm.

"I had a good night," She positively beamed. "I have never been more happy to be SO wrong!" With that, she spun once more in place, and practically glided into the kitchen... and then popped her head out the door again. "Hang on a sec, isn't that The King's dog?"

"It is," I said, walking past her into the kitchen. "I actually wanted to talk to you guys about him."

As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I was hit in the face with an unexpected breeze; all the windows in the kitchen were open. Cass, Boone, and Arcade were all sitting around the table, eating lunch; Cass was digging into a bowl of some kind of stew and a bottle of whiskey, Boone was tearing into a massive slab of red meat and a bottle of beer, and Arcade had half of some kind of casserole and a glass of wine in front of him. Veronica sat down in the empty chair next to Cass, scooted her chair rather close to the whiskey drinking cowgirl, and started eating some of the meat kebabs in front of her. I wasn't really interested in any food at the moment, so I reached into the fridge and grabbed a Nuka Cola.

"I'm glad you're all here," I said, leaning against the front of the fridge. "I actually had something to tell you guys."

"Isn't that The King's dog?" Arcade asked, pointing at Rex with his fork, before taking another bite of casserole.

"Yes he is, and I was actually just getting to that." I shook my head and took a drink. "The King hired me for a job, and I was probably going to be gone for a couple of days, unless you guys wanted to come with."

"So what's th' job?" Cass asked, taking a swig of whiskey. I heard a strange growling at my heels, and realized that Rex was hunched over and alternating between scowling (as much as a dog could scowl, anyway) at Cass and Boone. It took me a minute to make the connection. I scratched him behind the ears like The King had done, and that seemed to calm him down a bit.

"Rex here is sick, and The King wants me to take him to a doctor who might be able to fix his brain. Problem is, the doctor apparently lives up in the mountains, in some place called Jacobstown." Arcade set down his fork and his eyes went wide.

"Doctor Henry?" Arcade asked rather loudly, a slight edge to his voice. He looked around, and realized that everyone - even Rex - was staring at him. "What?"

"Okay, I'll bite," I asked, taking another drink of Nuka. "What is it about this Doc Henry that's got you so spooked?"

"I'm not spooked, I just..." Arcade cleared his throat. "Henry's an old colleague of mine. He's the man who first started teaching me about medicine. I just... I never thought I'd hear from him again, that's all." Plausible enough, I thought. But there was something about his reaction and his explanation that was scratching at the back of my mind and just not sitting right with me.

"Alright, whatever. Keep your secrets. Does that mean you're interested in coming at least?" Arcade nodded.

"Yeah... it'll be nice to see him again."

"I'm game," Boone spoke up, taking another bite of steak.

"Sounds fun," Cass took another swig of whiskey. "Nev'r been up ta Jacobstown 'fore."

"You know," Veronica cast a quick glance at Cass to her left and smiled. "I was gonna run some errands, do some collecting... but I think it can wait. Count me in!"

I took a look around the table, at my four friends, all of whom were going to eventually pile into my five-seater car with me... and then I looked down at Rex, who was looking back up at me expectantly, and I realized just how much space a German Shepherd with cybernetic parts was going to take up in my car.

* * *

While most of my companions were getting ready for a trip into the mountains, I was trying to find Cass. Eventually, I found her on the balcony that ringed the suite, looking out over the vista of New Vegas and the wasteland beyond the wall, flask in hand.

"Hey Cass." She jumped a little at my voice, but sighed when she realized it was me. "Got a minute?"

"Uh... yeah, sure," she leant against the balcony and took another drink. I stopped next to her and leant on the railing myself.

"So," I finally asked her. "What's the deal with you and Veronica?"

"Oh, fuck man, I don't even know," Cass ran her fingers through her hair, knocking her hat back a bit. "So, last night I had a few drinks, yeah?"

"I noticed," I nodded with a smirk. "She did too, if I recall."

"Right. Well, I got to talkin' with V, an' one thing led t'another, next thing I know I woke up with my face buried in her chest!"

"Nice," I held back the urge to give her a high five.

"Yeah, it was... but..." she trailed off and took another swig from her flask.

"So what's the problem?"

"Th' problem is... well, I'm just... See, I was just lookin' t'have a little fun last night, right? But I have this nasty feelin' that it was more'n just a bit've fun for her, y'know?"

"Ah," I nodded, finally understanding. "Yeah, I kind of picked up on that when I got back earlier." Saying that made Cass look a little worried.

"She's not callin' me her girlfriend already, is she?"

"Just about." The image of Veronica dancing with joy flashed across my short-term memory. Cass, on the other hand, just grimaced.

"Fuck!"

"Hang on, I'm confused. How is this a bad thing?" I asked. "I mean, no offense or anything, but I'm not sure I see why you're freaking out here. Isn't Veronica kind of perky and bubbly and awesome?" Cass turned and looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head.

"Dude. Have you been payin' attention?"

"I do try my best to pay attention, yes. Why?"

"Then ya should've figured by now - I'm not really 'relationship' material! I'm not th' type t'settle down'r get hitched'r nothin'. I mean, I'm fine with a little fuckin,

* * *

here'n there every once in a while if it's just a bit've fun, but not if it's gonna turn into somethin'..." Cass sighed, and gulped audibly. "... serious."

"I think you're making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. If that's how things are gonna be, then I think the best thing you should do is tell her what's going on." Rather than looking relieved, Cass just looked even more nervous. I just sighed. "Okay, what's the other problem?"

"The problem is... well, y'were right earlier 'bout V bein' awesome. She's really nice, an' fun t'be 'round, an' really fuckin' hot, an' I'm just... she's been through a lot th' last few years..." For some reason, words flashed across my mind: _With regret comes a girl… smiling sad... half here, half there... wraps her and her heart up like a pack..._

"I... I don't want her t'get hurt, y'know?" Cass continued. "I want to let her down soft, but... well fuck, you know how hard I can be t'deal with sometimes."

"Only when you're drinking," I said with a shrug. She furrowed her brow, thinking about that for a minute.

"I'm always drinkin'."

"Exactly."

"Fuck you," She let out a half hearted chuckle - and punched me in the arm. "Look, point is, I know if I just out-n-out tell her, I'm gonna fuck somethin' up, an' she's gonna get hurt. Things'll get messy."

"Yeah... that's the problem with relationships... sometimes they hurt more than bullets. And you can't heal the scars you get from relationships with stimpacks or trips to the doctor. Some scars stay with you, and you can't get rid of them, no matter how hard you try."

I did my best to fight down images of the raven haired woman from my past... But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quite get her vibrant green eyes and soft, smiling lips or her infectious laugh out of my head. I tried to shake it off, but it didn't really work. Luckily, Cass was on hand to help further distract me.

"Man, fuckin' is great, but feelings are stupid."

"Eloquent, as always," I said. She just shook her head.

"Why d'we have t'have stupid feelings and emotions?"

"Because emotions are what make us human. Yeah, sometimes they hurt. Sometimes our emotions can even destroy us... but without emotions we wouldn't feel joy, or triumph, or hope, or... love. Without the ability to feel, life would just be empty and hollow. Emotions are the things that define who we are, and they can make life stupid and brilliant and messy and... wonderful."

There was a very long silence, and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the wind rushing through my hair. Finally, I looked back to Cass, and realized that she'd been staring at me like I'd grown another head... again.

"What?" I asked.

"You know, I never know what th' fuck I'm gonna get when I deal with you," she said matter of factly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, fuck man, think 'bout it - sometime's y'act like a goddamn moron, like ya can't see yer fuckin' hands in front've yer face, an' other times you pull some serious old world philosopher type shit outta yer ass, like jus' then! You are seriously some kind of idiot savant or something." I admit, I did laugh at that. But I shook it off quickly.

"Look, back to the point - what are you gonna do about this? Eventually you're going to have to tell her that you're not looking for a serious committed relationship."

"Not necessarily! I figure, if I just keep actin' like myself fer long 'nuff, she'll figure out that I'm a shitty girlfriend, and that'll be that." She forced a smile, almost like she was trying to convince herself.

"That's not a solution. You know that, right?"

"Maybe not," Cass shrugged. "But it might give me 'nuff time t'think of somethin' better."

"Do you think this'll cause problems in the short term - say, for instance, the five of us and a halfway-cybernetic German Shepherd piled into my car and heading to Jacobstown?" I asked. She shook her head.

"Nah... I think things'll be cool. For a while, 'tleast..."

There was a very long pause where both of us just leaned on the railing, looking out over Vegas. Neither of us said a word. And then...

"Yer real easy t' talk to. I don' usually open up 'bout... problems like this. To any'ne." I just chuckled under my breath, and patted her on the shoulder.

"Thanks for saying that. What else are friends for, right?"

"Yeah... friends..." Again, she looked out across Vegas in silence.

And then...

"Will say this 'bout V - the sex is fuckin' fantastic!"

"Is it now?" Like before, I did my best to hold back a smile. I'm pretty sure I failed miserably. Of course, instead of her face flush with embarrassment like before, she just broke out into a wide grin.

"Oh man, you got no fuckin' idea! An' th' best part? She's got th' most gorgeous pair've tits in the goddamn world!" I'm not sure she realized she was doing it, but she started groping a pair of invisible breasts in front of her, and I did my damndest not to just bust up laughing hysterically right there. "I mean, y'can't really tell 'neath all that armor, but they're fuckin' huge! They're just, like, these two big, soft, squishy pillows that I c'n jus' bury my face in fer days and just be lost!"

"You know, I think I can see why Veronica likes you now." Cass broke out of her trance, and looked at me questioningly, so I continued. "Your enthusiasm about her chest is positively intoxicating."

At that precise moment in the city below, the people walking around Vegas began to question where the loud and absolutely raucous laughter they were suddenly hearing was coming from.

11


	30. Chapter 29: Jacobstown

Chapter 29: Jacobstown

* * *

_That was Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters, crooning about "Civilization." You know, sometimes the wasteland can get you down. Sometimes it feels like a few days can last several weeks, or even months out here. And that's why I'll always be here for you, bringing you the soothing sounds of the old world... to make life just a little less hectic. A little more bearable. This is Mr. New Vegas. Thanks for listening._

* * *

Before we'd even set off for Jacobstown, there were problems. Not because I wasn't sure everyone would fit in the Corvega (though, I admit, that did turn out to be a bit of an issue), but because... well...

"Th' hell, man!" Cass yelled out. "Why's he freakin' th' fuck out on us?" Cass had tried to properly introduce herself to Rex, but the dog just started growling and snarling and barking at her. And then it just got worse when Boone tried to calm him down.

"The King said Rex doesn't like hats, or the people who wear them," I said with a straight face. At least, as much as I could muster. Both Cass and Boone stopped and stared at me.

"What." The two of them practically spoke in unison. I just shrugged.

"That's pretty much exactly what I said. Something to do with rhyming with rats or something, I don't know."

"That doesn't make sense," Boone said simply.

"You're right, it doesn't make any sense. But you know what's more important than that?" I paused, waiting to see if they'd figured out what I had. I let the silence hang in the air for a minute. "More important, the dog has stopped barking."

The three of us all turned to look at Rex - and instead saw the unmistakable brown cloak of Veronica. She'd appeared out of nowhere, and was showering Rex with attention, scratching him behind the ears and below the brain case. Rex's tongue lolled out of his mouth lazily, his tail was wagging like mad.

"Well, I suppose that's one problem solved," I said, holding back a chuckle.

* * *

And so, off we went to Jacobstown, Cass riding shotgun, Boone behind her, Arcade in the middle with his face buried in another book, and Veronica behind me with Rex sitting on her lap. As big as the dog was outside, he was positively enormous inside the car. Things weren't quite as bad as they could have been, however... mostly because Rex was sticking his head (and a sizable portion of the rest of him besides) out the back window as we drove along. I'm just glad ED-E could fly, because I don't think we could have squeezed anyone else into the damn car.

The trip up the mountain was pretty quiet, surprisingly. I mean, occasionally we made small talk - well, when I say "we" I mean Cass, Veronica, and myself. Arcade was too wrapped up in his book, and Boone was... well, Boone. Just inconsequential bullshit to pass the time. As we got further and further up the road snaking up the mountain, however, we no longer found ourselves in a desert. And the bullshit just sort of... stopped.

"Ok, correct me if I'm wrong..." Veronica said, looking around. "But you guys are seeing this, right? I'm not just going crazy?"

"That all d'pends..." Cass chimed in sticking her head out the window to get a better view of the landscape rushing past. "Are you seein' a whole fuckload'a trees?"

"Ok, I'm not going crazy. Good to know."

If I'm honest, I'm glad they said it first, because I was starting to doubt my own eyes. It began as just a few trees as we made our way up the winding mountain road but by the time Veronica pointed it out, the trees were so thick we could barely see anything else.

I've seen trees before, but it wasn't all that often; there's the park in the center of Shady Sands, Vault City has a garden where they grow crops, and the city of Arroyo has a fair number of trees, too. But those trees were not like these trees. The colors of those trees - the light brown bark, the dull green leaves, the grey apples - all the colors seemed... off somehow. Like the trees weren't real. Like they were manufactured, rather than grown. By contrast, The more I looked, the more I realized that these tall, thick trees with dark, rich browns and deeply vibrant greens... this is what trees are supposed to look like.

"Forget the trees," I finally said. "Is it just me, or it starting to get a bit colder?" Most of the time, traveling in my car was decently cold compared to the blistering heat of the desert sun, but that was usually just because of the wind rushing in through the windows that didn't have glass. But the last few minutes, it really had felt like the temperature had dropped considerably.

"It is getting colder," Arcade said without even looking up from his book. "Air is less dense at higher altitudes, and can't retain as much heat energy from solar radiation as it can at lower altitudes where the air has a higher density per cubic inch. It has to do with the volume of air in a given-" before he could continue, Cass interrupted him.

"Thank ye, profess'r, I think we get th' point." She shifted in her seat, and pulled her jacket closer around her. "An' th' point is, it's gettin' fuckin' cold."

"It's not that bad," Boone spoke up.

Before I knew it, a bend in the road brought us to yet another surprising sight. Still a ways ahead of us and blocking the road was a large wall, made out of giant wood poles. Some of them looked like telephone poles that had been sharpened at the top, but a lot of the others looked to be little more than massive tree trunks that had been simply ripped out of the ground and put in place. And then, behind the wall, we got our first real view of the mountain peak.

It was... white. There were clouds hanging around the peak that almost looked like fog, and the peak itself wasn't green like the rest of the trees around the mountain. Everything was covered in a thin layer of white powder. It was... snow? It took me a minute to think of the word. I'd seen trees in person before, obviously, but the only time I'd ever seen snow was in a holotape about a fat man in a red suit. The closest I'd ever come to seeing snow in real life was the ash storms around the Boise ruins. But I think I'm getting a little off topic.

"D'ya s'pose that's it then?" Cass asked as I pulled the car to a stop several dozen feet away from the wall. I checked my Pip Boy and nodded. But something was bothering me. Jacobstown, just guessing from the name, was (presumably) a town of some sort. So, where was everyone?

"Wait here a sec. I'll check it out," I said, getting out of the car. I don't know how to explain it - everything was calm and seemingly normal, but I couldn't shake a feeling of unease. So I checked to make sure Roscoe's was loaded, but I kept the safety on and the holster unbuttoned when I put it back on my thigh. Probably not the safest thing, but useful for a quick draw... just in case.

Slowly and carefully, I approached the wall of logs. I could hear a faint buzzing as ED-E hovered several dozen feet above me. I looked around, scanning my surroundings, but I was still kind of in awe of all the plant life and the unfamiliar colors. Which I suppose was why I was caught off guard.

"Hold it right there, human!" an incredibly loud and deep voice, like a 300 pound man gargling gravel with a tongue made of sandpaper, came out of nowhere. Instinctively, I reached for Roscoe and looked around for the source of the voice. But I removed my hand a moment later when a second voice shouted out from somewhere else nearby: "Hands where we can see them! Don't make any sudden movements, or you're dead meat, human!"

A second later, a good chunk of what I thought were two large bushes next to the wall stood up. The outline of both figures was positively massive, and I immediately recognized what they had to be: super mutants. They were wearing some kind of outfits covered in branches and leaves and various other bits of plant life. I suddenly became aware of the two very large caliber rifles, wrapped in burlap and even more plant life, pointing directly at my chest.

"Uh... hi." I said, the gears in my brain slowly starting to turn, trying to think. In the meantime, I just kept my hands raised, away from me. "You two are pointing very large guns at me, and I'm not entirely certain why." The mutant on the right stepped closer towards me, and I couldn't help but just keep looking up. The muzzle of his rifle was just a few inches from my chest now.

"What's your business in Jacobstown, human?" one of the massive super mutants covered in leaves asked. I tried to see through the camouflage he was wearing, but his face was completely concealed by mesh.

"I'm here to see Doctor Henry," I said as calmly as I could muster. Part of me tensed up when I heard movement from behind and above me. Without looking away from the mutant, I pointed back towards my Corvega and spoke as quickly as I could before ED-E or anyone else rushed in and got me killed. "I got a sick cyberdog in my car that needs his particular brand of expertise, and I heard Jacobstown is where I could find him. Is he here?"

The super mutant bearing down on me took a few steps back and raised his right hand to the mass of mesh and foliage surrounding his head. When he spoke, it was obvious that he wasn't speaking to me anymore.

"Marcus. Did you get any of that?" He paused. "What's your call, sir?" There was a longer pause this time. "Yes sir. Loud and clear. Over and out." The mutant put his hand back on the rifle, and stepped back towards the wall, taking a large fist and smacking it against the wall twice with a pair of resounding thuds. I looked around, and realized the other mutant had already disappeared.

"Go on in, human. Marcus wants to talk to you." I started to relax. I let my hands fall to my sides, and took a quick glance back at my Corvega. Sure enough, Cass, Boone, Arcade and Veronica (with Rex at her heels) had all exited the car, but hadn't gotten too far. ED-E was by them too, hovering around at eye level.

I turned back to the wall, and quickly realized the other mutant sentry had disappeared just as swiftly and silently as the other one. How something that massive could be that sneaky without a stealth boy, I still haven't figured out. While I was trying to work it out, the large door made of tree trunks and telephone poles started to open inwards with a loud groan.

"So, what th' fuck was that 'bout?" Cass asked as she and everyone else got close. Her shotgun was in her hand, but thankfully it was pointed at the ground. "Those looked like super mutants." I nodded.

"They were. And apparently somebody named Marcus wants to see me." I took a look inside the now open gate. Off in the distance, I saw a number of long, two story houses painted a dull deep color that wasn't quite red, but wasn't quite brown either. I saw a few signs of life, like bighorners, and right next to the road was a large sign; even though it was faded and painted over, I could tell that before the war it had said "Mt. Charleston Lodge and Ski Resort." It now simply read "Jacobstown."

"Marcus?" Arcade asked. "I was under the impression we were here to see Henry. Who's Marcus?"

"You sure this is the right place? A super mutant town?" I nodded, and walked forward through the gate and into the town, still a bit on edge if I'm honest.

"I hear you're looking for Henry, human," said a voice similar to the ones I'd heard before. However, this voice seemed a bit... mellow, somehow. I looked around for the source, and was suddenly face to face with another super mutant. There were several things that struck me about his appearance: on his right shoulder he wore a piece of bright orange metal, he had a large headset with a mic strapped to his ear, and the left side of his face was covered in warts, bumps, and deep pits. The thing that stood out the most, however, was his mouth. It wasn't in a constant sneer. Unlike every single other super mutant I'd ever seen before, he didn't have leather straps holding the sides of his mouth up.

If it wasn't for the greenish-grey skin, the massive muscles bulging out from underneath the metal plates of his armor, and the fact that he stood a good head and a half taller than me, I'd go so far as to say he almost looked normal.

"Yes I am," I said with a nod. "Are you Marcus?"

"Indeed. We don't get many human visitors up here. At least, not many friendly human visitors, so I thought I'd welcome the newcomers."

"Is that why the guards outside were covered in bushes?" I asked with a smirk. Marcus chuckled a little at that.

"Yeah, the last few months we've had problems with raiders and bandits, so the guards have taken to wearing the ghille suits. So, do you mind if I ask who you all are?"

"Well, I'm Sheason, this is Cass, Arcade, Veronica, Boone, ED-E, and Rex. You the guy in charge here?" He just chuckled softly, though being a super mutant, I could still feel the vibrations the laugh sent through the ground.

"I guess you could say that. Mayor, sheriff, founder... I do my best to keep things from falling apart. Just got a few rules you and your friends need to know if you're gonna be staying here for any length of time. You're free to walk around, just don't stare at the Nightkin. They don't like people looking at them."

"Nightkin?" I asked. I felt like I'd heard that name before, and then I remembered: the blue skinned super mutants below the REPCONN site that used the stealth boys. The leader had called them Nightkin.

"I think he means commandos," Boone added, probably thinking of the same thing.

"Why don't the Nightkin like people looking at them?" Veronica asked.

"The Nightkin suffer schizophrenia from the Stealth Boys they're always using. They don't like being visible. They don't take being exposed too well," Marcus said grimly. A grimace passed over his face, and he continued. "One of the reasons I settled Jacobstown was so they could be cured. But not every group of Nightkin..." He sighed heavily. "They don't all know about this place. And not every Nightkin wants to get cured anyway."

"We ran into a group of commandos at the rocket test site west of Novac," Boone said to Marcus. "Last I heard, they were heading to the REPCONN headquarters in Henderson."

"Thanks for the tip," Marcus turned and nodded at Boone, but then stopped when he saw the beret on Boone's head. His eyes narrowed. "One other thing. If you're NCR, keep it to yourself. They're not popular around here. Lot of bad blood, goes back years. Some here still have the memories. Most still have the scars."

"I'm not taking off my beret," Boone stated, seemingly trying to stare down Marcus from behind his sunglasses. Marcus just shrugged.

"Personally, I don't have a problem if you're NCR, so long as you stay out of trouble. But I'm not the town. Other than that, I don't think there's anything different from any other civilized town. Don't start any fights or steal anything, we'll treat you fair. Not a lot to ask."

"Alright, fair enough," I said. "So, where can I find Doctor Henry then?"

"Inside the lodge," Marcus gestured behind him, towards the big reddish-brown building at the end of the road. "Your best bet would be the lab, at the south end of the building. Just follow the sounds of sparking wires and arcing electricity, you can't miss it."

"Thanks. Oh, and one other thing, before I forget. Is there a place where I can park my car?"

* * *

The inside of the lodge was not really what I expected. All around Jacobstown, we'd seen lots of super mutants walking around everywhere, going about their business and staring at the newcomers - the only time I'd ever seen so many super mutants in one place that weren't trying to shoot at me was Necropolis. And when I opened the door to the ski lodge, I expected more of the same.

But no. Everything on the inside of the building was either made of wood or stone, and there were animal heads and rugs and furs mounted on the walls... but I couldn't see any mutants. Cass let out a low whistle as she stepped inside just behind me.

"Damn. This s'plush, isn't it?"

"I think they were going for 'timelessly rustic,' with the hunting trophies mounted everywhere," Arcade said, examining one of the animal heads near the front desk. "I'm surprised they're still so well preserved after so long. I don't think many of these species exist anymore." I nodded, sparing a glance for some kind of brown and orange bird that had been stuffed and mounted on the wall, and started walking towards the hall on the right - the south part of the building, according to my Pip Boy's compass - when I heard Boone speak up from right behind me.

"We're not alone." I didn't get a chance to ask what he was talking about before I got an answer in the form of a loud, harsh voice. It wasn't quite as gravelly as most super mutant voices, but there was an edge of hard impatience to the words.

"More humans? What are you doing here? The Nightkin want nothing to do with you humans..." The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows. If he hadn't moved, I would've never known he was there. He was one of the blue skinned super mutants - in fact, he looked almost exactly the same as the leader of the super mutants below REPCONN. The only difference was that he didn't carry a brahmin skull.

"Hey, I'm not trying to cause any trouble. I'm just looking for Doc Henry." I looked around, past all the hunting trophies and all the wood and stone, and my blood went ice cold; in every shadow, I could make out the faint outlines of Nightkin. They weren't doing anything, they were just... watching. Unblinking. Every pair of mutant eyes in the dark recesses' of the lodge's lobby were fixed directly on me.

"You're human," the Nightkin said again. "You don't need to try for trouble to find you. You're always staring at things. Always sticking your noses into things you don't understand. Always prodding, always poking... Always staring. You make us uncomfortable."

"Well, you're staring at us," Veronica said. "How's that different?"

"IT IS DIFFERENT!" the Nightkin practically yelled, stepping out of the shadows and looming over us. I think Boone is the only one of us who didn't step back. "Right now I'm trying very _very_ hard to remain civil. You are not making it easy!" I stepped in between the mutant and everyone else, and tried to ignore the fact that he was much, much larger than any other mutant I'd ever encountered.

"Look, we're just here to see Doctor Henry. Nothing else. Do you think you can let us pass?" He stared at me for a few seconds, and then started to slowly back away, speaking as he slipped back into the shadows.

"Of course... but you should know something, human. I represent the Nightkin. Marcus may lead this town, but the Nightkin listen to Keene - they listen to me." And with that, he disappeared back into the shadows. I took a look around, and realized all the other Nightkin had vanished as well.

"This is getting ridiculous. How are they doing that?" I said, not even trying to hide my exasperation.

"Do what?" Cass asked.

"Just disappear like that! They're like 300 pounds of solid muscle - how can they move that quietly?" I sighed, shook my head, and headed down the hallway. "I swear, this is starting to be the weirdest trip to the vet in history..."

* * *

There was a pair of closed double doors at the end of the hall. On one of the smoked glass windows - which looked to have been reinforced with iron mesh - there was a sign which read: "Doctor Adolphus Henry" and below it: "PhD, MD, OD, DVM"

I couldn't help but just... stare at the odd collection of letters. What did it all mean? I was about to ask Arcade, since he'd probably know, when he brushed past me and opened up the door without even knocking. Rex was right behind him. Just as the door opened, there was a sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning, a bright flash, and a loud hum that started to wind itself down to a lower pitch.

The inside of this room was such a highly stark contrast to the rest of the lodge, that I could hardly believe it existed in the same continent, much less the same building. The walls were either torn out to show exposed wiring with hundreds of splices, or were covered in sheets of slightly stained white metal. All around were machines of all various shapes and sizes, mainframe computers with arcane dials and exposed wiring, a corner full of computer terminals, and at least half a dozen operating and examination tables shoved against one wall. There were several tables, all of which were covered in laboratory equipment, beakers, stacks of papers, microscopes, test tubes.

"Sorry boss," I heard a voice that sounded like a woman who'd smoked two packs a day for forty years over the roar of machinery. "Looks like this one's another failure, just like the rest." The owner of the voice was a female ghoul who held a clipboard in her rotten hands, and was wearing a white lab coat. She was monitoring the readout on one of the large mainframes hooked up to the wall. From behind a set of privacy blinds near the operating tables came a very old looking man, also wearing a white lab coat and a pair of enormous glasses. He just grumbled at the ghoul's comment, taking off the coat and placing it on a nearby coat rack. And that was when he noticed us.

"Who are you?" He asked, approaching me with an accusatory glare. The effect seemed amplified, since his enormous spectacles made his eyes appear about four times larger than they should have been. He furrowed his brow at me, causing the massive wrinkles in his face and cheeks to become even more pronounced. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking before barging into a room? I certainly hope this is important, because you're interrupting some very important - and very delicate - research."

"Hello, Henry," Arcade said before I got a chance to respond. The doctor raised an eyebrow at the voice and looked around for the source, adjusting his glasses like he couldn't quite believe his eyes. "It's certainly been a while, hasn't it?"

"Arcade? Arcade Israel Gannon, is that really you? Bloody hell boy, you've grown."

"No, I haven't. You've just gotten shorter." The two of them laughed.

"Yes, well, that's just the osteoporosis for you. Eighty seven years on this mudball spinning through space, and I still can't stop myself from getting old, no matter how hard I try. It has been a while, hasn't it though? Four years, two months and sixteen days since the entirety of the old gang got together last, unless my ailing brain is failing me." I caught a smirk in the corner of Henry's mouth. "I suppose this visit isn't entirely social, however, what with the motley collection of vagabonds you seem to have collected." The elderly doctor cast a glance in our direction.

"Hey!" Cass practically yelled. "Who're ye callin' a vagabond?"

"I'm glad you finally have a decent set up. This looks like a reasonably effective laboratory you've built for yourself," Arcade said, ignoring Cass completely.

"Do you really think so?" Henry sighed, shrugged, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Personally, I think it's a bit spartan. Everything here is salvaged and scavenged. It's a child's play set compared to the set up I had back in-"

"As much as I'd like to catch up," Arcade cut him off before he could continue, "we're here because of a cyberdog. This cyberdog, specifically." He gestured to Rex, who looked up at the pair of docs expectantly. "According to his owner, The King, there's something wrong with his brain. I know cyberdogs are one of your areas of expertise, so we brought him to you."

"Hmm..." Henry knelt down with a groan and the sound of popping joints to get a closer look at the dog. Amazingly, the dog was incredibly obedient as the old man ran his fingers over the metal plates, the brain case, checking the dog's muzzle. After a minute or two of examining the dog in such a manner, he attempted to get back up... and then held his hand out above his head. Instinctively, I went to help the doctor get up, while Arcade grabbed his hand and helped steady him as well.

"Thank you, boys," he said more to Arcade than me. "Well, if I had to guess, I'd say this dog is suffering from neural degradation. Bio med gel can only preserve a living brain for so long... but in order to be sure, I'll need to examine him more thoroughly for the next several hours."

"How many hours are we talking about?" Veronica asked, placing a hand on Cass' shoulder to get a better look at what was going on. I tried to ignore Cass' blushing from the contact.

"Maybe three... four hours at most. Of course, that's merely the examination and diagnostic scans. That doesn't take into account the time needed to fix any problems that I may discover, of course."

"Does this place have rooms or beds where we can stay the night?" I asked, already knowing exactly where this was going, and dreading the outcome regardless. Henry merely shrugged as he encouraged the cyberdog to follow him and get up on one of the examination tables.

"You'd have to ask Marcus about something like that. However... there is one other thing." He said, putting his lab coat back on. Here it comes...

"Go ahead and say it," I said, fairly certain of what was coming next.

"My work regarding the Nightkin has reached a critical stage and cannot afford any delays. If you help me out with my research, then I'll gladly help your dog."

Yup. It's gonna be another one of those days, isn't it?

"Fine. What exactly are you working on, anyway?"

"A long term project that Marcus gave me. The Nightkin have varying degrees of mental instability due to their addiction to stealth boy usage. Over the last several months, I've been trying to develop a cure, with varying degrees of success. Currently, I'm investigating the local nightstalker population. For some reason, they seem to have developed a stealth field almost identical to the one generated by a stealth boy device. I've also gotten my hands on a working stealth boy Mark II prototype, but any experiments using that carries with it a substantial risk, so I'd rather not pursue that avenue of research just yet."

"Alright. So, what do you need us to do?"

"I'm not convinced that the nightstalker mutation is a natural one. I've compared the brain chemistry of a Nightkin to one of the local nightstalkers we killed," As he spoke, he pulled out a pair of printouts and showed them to us. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but Arcade seemed like he understood what it meant. "They both exhibit similar neurochemical changes. Now, I'm not claiming that nightstalkers are running around wearing stealth boys, mind you. I just don't think it's all a coincidence. What I need right now is some proof, and I need someone to investigate their lair in the hills above Jacobstown to get it for me. Some of the super mutants have looked around, and can show you where it is, but they've all come back empty handed. Perhaps a pair of fresh eyes will have better luck."

I turned to the rest of the group. "Well? What do you say? Want to go hunting?" If nothing else, it would give us all something to do while the doctor looked Rex over. Before I got an answer from any of them, Henry spoke up one last time.

"Oh, and by the way. Lily might be interested in coming with you."

"Lily?" I asked. Henry nodded.

"Yes. Trust me, you'll know 'her' when you see 'her.' Regardless, she's lost a few of her bighorners to the nightstalkers and would probably enjoy a spot of revenge. Who knows, if you convince her to tag along, she might be useful." I just nodded slowly.

"I'll see what I can do."


	31. Chapter 30: Unfriendly Persuasion

Chapter 30: Unfriendly Persuasion

* * *

_You're listening to Radio New Vegas, and it's time for some news. According to an anonymous source in the NCR, a Legion slaver party was wiped out last night in a failed raid of the Bitter Springs refugee camp. Two armed civilians that have yet to be identified inflicted heavy Legion casualties. The source said, quote; "God sent us two angels, and at least one of them had a .308 caliber flaming sword of justice - with a telescopic sight." Got a Tony Bennett song up next, letting us all know that "The Best Is Yet To Come."_

* * *

"Hey, Sheason? You got a minute?" Boone spoke up from behind me as I walked away from the lodge. I looked behind me, and for some reason, he was the only one there - aside from ED-E. I knew Arcade was still in Henry's lab - he'd wanted to help Henry out in whatever way he could and elected to stay in the lab. But where were Cass and Veronica?

"Yeah, I always got time for you, man. What's up?" I asked. Boone cleared his throat, and adjusted his sunglasses.

"I just wanted to... uh.. say... thanks. For Bitter Springs. Convincing me to go back, I mean." I nodded slowly.

"Don't worry about it, man. I just hope it helped."

"Yeah. It did," he said, his expression unchanged. "Things seem... clearer somehow. Saving those people from the Legion... I don't think doing that balanced out what I did, or made it any better, but... I think I just needed some kind of closure..." Boone trailed off.

"Sometimes a little bit of closure is all you need." I leaned against one of the stone pillars and folded my arms across my chest, and looked out across Jacobstown. "Did you ever tell Carla about what happened?"

"No." Boone said almost before I'd even finished speaking. He started looking at the rest of the town... though, I could tell, he was reflexively scanning the surrounding for potential targets rather than enjoying the scenery. "I wanted to... a couple of times. I just... I couldn't."

The two of us just stood there, staring at the town in silence; the only noise came from ED-E hovering in the air behind us. And then the silence was broken. The doors behind us swung open, and I could hear both Cass and Veronica laughing about something. When I looked, Veronica had her arm draped over Cass' shoulder, and Cass' hat was askew.

"So, where've you two been?" I asked... and immediately realized it was a stupid question. The two of them tried to stop laughing and calm themselves down, and they both tried to straighten out their outfits. As they did so, I noticed that both of them were blushing profusely, and Cass was trying to adjust her jacket's collar to hide a red mark on her neck.

"Uh, we were jus'... Nowhere. Y'know, jus' fallin' back a bit." Cass blurted out hurriedly.

"Yep, nothing to worry about!" Veronica said, failing to hold back a smile. "Absolutely no reason to suspect that the two of us were making out while no one was looking." Cass just looked away, cleared her throat, and tried to pull her hat down over her face.

"Hate to break up the soap opera," Boone spoke up; the relief on Cass' face was extremely evident. "But I think Marcus wants a word." I turned just in time to see the super mutant mayor come to a stop a few feet away from me.

"Hey there, human. Mind if I ask you a question?" Marcus asked.

"Well, you just did, but go on," I smirked. Marcus chuckled as well.

"I was just curious about something. I saw you driving that blue Corvega on the way in - are you that Courier that got shot in Goodsprings?"

"Let me guess," I said, rubbing my temple. "You heard about me on the radio?" Marcus nodded.

"Well, yes. I guess that means you are, huh? I got a problem, and could use your help." He said simply.

"Does it involve carrying a package somewhere? Because frankly, I could use something boring to break up the shootouts and fistfights."

"Not to mention getting the crap kicked out of you," I heard Cass mutter under her breath from behind me. Marcus just looked confused.

"Wait, you mean you actually are a courier?" Marcus looked a little confused. "I thought the name was just a metaphor."

"So what's the problem?" I asked, hoping to get the conversation back on track.

"The last few weeks, Jacobstown has been harassed by a couple of NCR mercenaries. We haven't seen them for a few days, but the guards just informed me they've shown up again," Marcus said tapping his headset. "They're repositioning near the main road. I think your car driving into the town may have piqued their interest."

"What do you mean harassing the town? What've they been doing?" I asked.

"Killing our bighorners, shooting at the lodge, that sort of thing. The bighorners are how the town supports itself - eating the meat, selling the hides and the milk, that sort of thing. Granted, there's enough wild ones around the mountain to restock the herd if one or two get killed, but the bigger problem is that it's getting harder and harder to keep people from retaliating."

"How do you know they're NCR?" Boone asked. Marcus opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out. Eventually, he just shrugged.

"I guess I can't say for sure if they're NCR. All we know for certain is that, whoever they are, they want us dead or gone."

"So why can't you just take them out?" I asked. "I mean, hell, the guns the guards have are huge. They have to be at least 50 cal or something. It's not like you don't have the firepower to defend yourself." That seemed the most obvious course of action. A sort of old-man-sitting-on-the-porch-with-a-shotgun, 'get off my lawn!' scenario if there ever was one.

"But we're not looking to fight anyone. That's the issue," Marcus said matter-of-factly. "Almost all of the people around here - including me - were in the Master's army. I've had enough of fighting, enough of war. That's why I founded Jacobstown. Us super mutants have needed a place to call our own for nearly a hundred and twenty years. I was hoping this place was far enough away from humans that they wouldn't bother us... One of these days I'm hoping we can live among the rest of the wasteland, just like everyone else. No more fighting, just... get along."

Marcus sighed and looked away from me, a wistful expression falling over his green features… I don't know how, but at that moment I got a sense of just how old, and how… _exhausted_ Marcus looked. I was at a loss for words. Just when I thought the wasteland couldn't surprise me anymore, something like this happens. Marcus shook it off and got serious again.

"If those mercs are killed, it'll give the NCR or whoever hired them an excuse to come up here to try and wipe us out. It would only escalate, and a whole lot of people – human, mutant, whoever – would get killed. The last thing the wasteland needs is more bloodshed."

"Alright, so what do you want me to do?"

"Well, you're human for a start - they might be willing to listen to what you have to say," Marcus said with a shrug. Cass just laughed.

"Yeah, that's like sayin' Caesar an' Kimball'd listen t'each other cuz they're both human."

"Fair point," Marcus agreed. "Still, you'd be more likely to at least get a word in than ... well, me," He gestured to himself. "Point is, I'm not asking you to kill them. Just try and talk them into leaving. Hell, pay them off if you have to."

"Alright. I'll see what I can do about your merc problem if you can help us find a place to stay the night. Sound reasonable?" Marcus seemed a bit surprised by the request, and started scratching his chin.

"Yeah, that sounds agreeable. I think there are a few unoccupied cabins on the north side of town. I wouldn't suggest trying to find a place in one of the big lodges - that's where the Nightkin like to stay. I'll look around to make sure; get back to you on that." And with that, Marcus walked off.

"Alright, so I got a plan," I said, turning to the rest of my friends. "Boone, you got the best eyes. See if you can find this Lily - according to the good doctor, she's wearing a big sun hat and gardening gloves, or something to that effect."

"Will do," he said with a nod.

"Veronica, see if you can find anyone willing to trade for supplies, just in case. Microfusion cells if you can manage it, the car's starting to run a bit flat. We should be fine for another hundred miles or so, but... you know. Better safe than sorry, right?" Veronica smiled and gave me a mock-salute.

"They don't call me a procurement specialist for nothin' boss! I'll find somebody willing to trade."

"Awesome. And Cass? Want to help me scare off the mercs?" Cass smirked and pulled the shotgun off her back. She turned to Veronica and put a finger to her lips.

"Shhh... be very, very quiet. We're hunting shitheads."

* * *

As it turns out, the three of us – Cass, ED-E, and myself – actually were pretty quiet as we started walking away from Jacobstown. That is, of course, until I decided to be a smartass.

"Soooo…" I started to say to Cass, a sly grin working its way onto my face. However, before I could say anything…

"Shut up," Cass said forcefully, pulling her flask off her hip and taking a drink.

"What? I haven't even said anything yet!"

"Yeah, but y'were thinkin' it. I could tell. Y'were gonna make some wise-ass comment 'bout me'n Veronica."

"Well, you have to admit, the two of you making out when the rest of us aren't looking, that was a rather feisty and – dare I say? – a rather scandalous move on her part." I knew in my head that I shouldn't be making fun, but I just couldn't help myself. Cass stopped in her tracks, and looked a little indignant.

"Hang on – what makes y'so sure t'was her idea? I c'n be just's feisty'n scand'lous as her!"

"So it was your idea then?" I asked, not even attempting to hold back the shit-eating grin. Her eyes just went wide and her cheeks when even redder when she'd realized what she'd said. Behind me, I heard ED-E let out a series of beeps and whistles that I was sure was him laughing.

"Fuck you," Cass shook her head and started walking again. She shook her head, and I could tell – a smile was trying to creep into the corner of her mouth. "S'not my fault she's got a… talented… tongue."

"She's quite the cunning linguist then, eh?" I added helpfully. Thankfully, she just laughed that time instead of getting offended.

"Yeah… th' words jus' _roll_ offa her tongue, don' they?" She barely finished before she joined ED-E and me laughing.

In the woods ahead of us, I heard a crack: the sound of a twig snapping. I brought a fist up to signal us to stop.

"Quiet," I said, just barely above a whisper, but loud enough that everyone shut up. "You hear that?"

"Think it's th' mercs?" Cass asked, keeping her shotgun at the ready. I nodded.

"Hey!" I called out in the direction I'd heard the noise. "We know you're there, so come on out. We just want to talk." I didn't see anything at first… just a bunch of thick foliage and trees. I was starting to feel quite foolish, like I was just hearing things, when five figures emerged from the woods.

I finally understood why Marcus knew these guys were mercenaries, and why he suspected they were NCR. These weren't unorganized raiders or opportunistic bandits wearing whatever bits of scrap they could scrounge together and carrying broken down guns held together with duct tape; these assholes looked like professionals. They were all wearing suits of matte-black combat armor, like the US army issued to foot soldiers before the bombs dropped. Three of them were carrying some Chinese made AK-47 knockoffs, the one in the back had a DKS-501 sniper rifle, and the one in the lead carried a plasma rifle. Put it all together, and that meant whoever these guys were, they were well funded and obviously did this kind of thing for a living.

It's funny sometimes, the details that stand out in your head more than the others. For some reason, the goatee of the merc with the plasma rifle reminded me of Orris' beard – except much better kept, and not as messy. And his head was buzzed, rather than shaggy. It was almost like this guy was Orris… if Orris had actually been as good as he thought he was.

"Clear off," the one with the goatee said. "Our business is with the muties, not you."

"What do you want with Jacobstown?" I asked simply. No sense beating around the bush.

"I'm just doing what I'm paid to do," he said, taking a step closer. He kept his rifle lowered. "Harass the muties 'till they leave or attack us. If they leave, we let 'em go. If they attack, we wipe them out. Either way, the job's not done until they've cleared out of the town."

"So who're you working for, wants this town cleared out so badly?"

"Won't name names, but there's some important folks back in the NCR who are sick of the muties attacking their Brahmin herds. They want them gone from NCR territory. Maybe this group had something to do with it. Maybe not. Doesn't matter. We're getting paid either way…" The lead merc scanned me up and down, and looked at me questioningly. "What's it to you?"

I was about to give them a counter offer to clear out, and do exactly what Marcus had said – pay them off – when an idea flashed across my brain. It was probably a stupid idea, but it might just be crazy enough to work.

"I just got one more question for you, then I'll leave you be. Any of you ever heard of The Courier?" I asked. The guy in the front took a step back, and confusion momentarily passed over his face.

"Yeah… I've heard about him on the radio – it's one of the news stories Mr. New Vegas has been playing over and over again. Something about a courier who got shot in the head near Goodsprings. He got up and started killing his way across the desert to Vegas. People've been talking about him like he's unkillable. I don't even think he exists, personally."

I didn't say anything. I just crossed my arms over my chest and angled my face in just the right way so he could get a full view of the bullet scar still on my forehead. I knew exactly when he noticed, because his eyes went wide as pie plates and the color started to drain from his face. A few of the mercs in the back started whispering to each other, looking worried.

"No…" he finally managed to say. "No way. That Courier he… he can't be you."

"Boss…" one of the mercenaries spoke up. "D'you see his face? It's got to be him!"

"Shut up!" the lead merc said through gritted teeth. I just held back a smile.

"Alright, here's the deal. You assholes are going to clear out. Don't come back to Jacobstown ever again. If you do… then you're gonna have to deal with **me**. And trust me, when I'm through with you? You'll **wish** you were only fighting super mutants." I let myself smirk, and shrugged. "You might win… but I got killed once already. All it did was piss me off. It's your choice." The merc in the lead narrowed his eyes at me, and shook his head.

"This is… what the fuck are you even going to do? You got no armor, you only have a 9 mil strapped to your hip… you got no plan, no hope – no way to win!"

"And doesn't that scare the shit out of you." It wasn't a question. I smiled wide, not even trying to hold back my amusement as he recoiled back, paralyzed with fear. Finally, he shook his head again.

"Fuck it. I know when to fold. This town ain't worth it anyway. We'll get out of here."

The five of them disappeared into the woods, and a few minutes later I heard the whine of several two-stroke engines firing up, followed by all five mercs emerging from the woods on motorcycles and speeding back down the hill. I gave them a friendly wave as they went by. Didn't really care if they saw it or not, but I thought it was funny.

When I turned around however, I was greeted by Cass staring at me with what can only be described as slack-jawed amazement. ED-E was nearby, and given the erratic nature of his hovering pattern, I'm sure that if he had a face he'd been looking at me the same way.

"What?" I asked, looking between the two of them.

"What th' fuck was that?" Cass asked. ED-E beeped a few times, as if in agreement. "I mean… fuck me, man! How'd you even DO that?" I just shrugged.

"I figured that if even Marcus had heard of 'The Courier' then the mercs probably had, too. Get my stupidly inflated reputation working for me for a change, and getting me _out_ of a shootout, rather than _into_ one."

"What if it hadn't worked?" she asked, with disbelief still seasoning her words. I just shrugged again.

"But it did."

* * *

It didn't take us too long to find Marcus.

"You won't have any more trouble with the mercenaries," I said simply. Marcus smiled at me… and for some reason, that struck me as odd. Maybe it was because I'd never seen a super mutant smile before.

"Yeah, the guards told me what happened. Good job – and I'm glad you didn't kill them. Letting them walk away proves we're not bloodthirsty mutants. If NCR or anybody else is looking for an excuse to attack Jacobstown, they're not going to get it from us. I have to say, though… that plan of yours? That was a bit risky, but it paid off. Kind of reminds me of a tribal I used to travel with… He always used to come up with the craziest, most suicidal plans imaginable, and somehow, he could make it work and come out on top without a scratch. " Marcus chuckled softly to himself.

"You travelled with a tribal?" Cass asked. Marcus nodded.

"Yeah. This was… 40 years ago? Maybe? I can't remember. After the Master was defeated, all the surviving super mutants scattered. I founded a mining town called Broken Hills – bunch of super mutants, humans and ghouls all living together peacefully… most of the time. And then one day, this tribal calling himself 'The Chosen One' walked into my town. One thing led to another, and I found myself travelling with him, his dog, and a one-eyed bartender to find a GECK to save Arroyo. It was still a tribal village, back then."

"The fuck is a GECK?" I asked. I felt like I'd heard the word before, but I couldn't place where, or what it was.

"The Garden of Eden Creation Kit," Marcus said simply. "It was a device about the size of a briefcase that was issued to a few Vaults before the war. Meant to terraform a lifeless waste, and make it habitable again."

"I'm guessing you succeeded?" I asked. I glanced over at Cass, who, for some reason, seemed lost in thought. Marcus nodded.

"Yeah, eventually. Nuked an oil rig in the process, though… Those were some fun times. We all went our separate ways after that. I went east, into the Rockies and wound up here. Don't know what happened to my friend, though… But I've got a feeling it turned out all right for him, in the end."

"Hold on, back up," Cass asked, with a surprising sense of urgency in her voice. "That one-eyed bartender – what was his name?"

"Damn… it's been a while…" Marcus scratched his chin, but then snapped his fingers. "I remember now. His name was Cassidy. John Cassidy."

No way.

I know I was stupefied, I can say that much for certain. That had to be too much of a coincidence. It just had to be. Or maybe the world really is that small. Who knows? I wasn't looking over at Cass, but I'm guessing the surprise was evident on her face as well, because Marcus asked: "What, did you know him?"

"Know him? John Cassidy was my father's name! You tryin' ta tell me you knew my father?"

"... You're Rose of Sharon Cassidy," Marcus said. It wasn't really a question. He leaned in to get a closer look at her. "You must be. You have his nose... and the whiskey blossoms on your cheeks." He smiled and chuckled a bit, but Cass just stood there, a look of shock plastered on her face. I could practically see the whiskey-soaked cogs turning in her head; she clutched at the rose pendant hanging around her neck.

"How th' fuck could y'know 'im? Nobody's ever known that fuckin' deadbeat, 'cept mom!" She blurted out. Marcus took a step back, confused.

"Deadbeat? John Cassidy?" Marcus shook his head. "No, John was one of the bravest, most honorable men I've ever met, next to The Chosen One. A little rough around the edges and hard to get used to, sure, but at the end of the day, he always wanted to do the right thing. Deal out his own brand of wasteland justice to those who'd exploit the weak, defend those who couldn't defend themselves..."

I was really hoping to see where this was going, but unfortunately, my attention was, at that precise moment, drawn away by a hand on my shoulder, and Boone informing me: "I found Lily."

As interesting as it would have been to sit on the sidelines and watch how that exchange would've played out to completion, I realized that there was still work to be done. So, with a sense of regret, I followed Boone away from Marcus and Cass.

With any luck, Cass'd tell me what happened later.

* * *

I should've been expecting this. I really should have.

Suddenly, everything Doc Henry had said about Lily made sense. She was tending to the animals in one of the bighorner pens around town, and her outfit consisted of a very large sun hat, a pair of oversized gardening gloves, a pair of tinted goggles, some tattered denim overalls, and a medkit strapped to her chest.

Oh, and she just happened to be a Nightkin. I now understood his odd tone of voice when he called Lily a 'her.'

"That her?" I asked Boone, even though I could just tell. He merely nodded. I sighed. "Well. Needs must."

The closer I got to her, the more I realized that she was actually pretty short for a super mutant. She was still easily a foot taller than me and twice as wide, but for some reason she just didn't seem quite as… massive as the other super mutants around town. Just unreasonably big.

"Excuse me?" I spoke up as I got behind her. The blue skinned super mutant turned at the sound, but I couldn't tell if she was looking at me from behind those tinted goggles. At first I thought she was sneering, but then I realized she just had those leather straps holding the corners of her mouth up. "Are you Lily?"

"Jimmy?" Just like every super mutant except Marcus, when she spoke it sounded like a very heavy man with a beard and chest hair gargling gravel. "Little Jimmy, is that you? Oh my, how you've grown up! It's so good of you to come and visit your grandma!"

"Wait, Jimmy?" I asked, more than a little bit confused. "Who's Jimmy?"

"Oh, Jimmy, don't you go on being silly now! Come here and give your grandma a hug!"

The next thing I knew, I found myself being lifted up off my feet, caught in a bear hug that started crushing my arms and insides. It felt like I was held in a giant vice – and if I didn't pass out from being unable to fill my lungs with air, I'd get knocked out by her halitosis. Honestly, her breath stunk. I felt and heard a series of rather sickening pops come from my back.

"It's always so nice whenever you come to visit!" I got a much better view of the leather straps holding the sides of her mouth up than I ever wanted. A wave of hot breath assaulted my senses, and practically made my eyes water.

"Gklkk! Gah! L-lily! P- put me d- down! Guk-k-k! I can- can't breathe!"

"Oh! Sorry, dearie!" Her voice rang in my eardrums, but thankfully she let me go. I collapsed to the ground in a heap, gasping for air, and hoping that I didn't have any cracked ribs. I felt a hand grasp me around the arm, and the next thing I knew Boone was helping me back onto my feet.

"Thanks man," I said, still gasping.

"Don't mention it," Boone said with a nod.

"I am so sorry, Jimmy. I guess your grandma doesn't know her own strength, does she?" She bellowed out a massive belly laugh, and the ground shook from the sound.

"I think…" it felt like I was trying to drink the air, rather than breathing it in. "I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm not Jimmy. My name is Sheason."

"I… Oh…" She suddenly went very still, and hunched over a bit. "Of course I have, dearie. How silly of me." Lily paused, and she started slowly nodding, her sun hat bobbing with every movement of her head. "I just haven't taken my medicine yet today. How can I help you?" Her voice, while still loud and still resonating like an overworked gravel quarry, seemed quieter and less… enthused now.

"I'm looking into the nightstalker mutation for Doctor Henry. He said you might want to come along and help?" I offered, finally getting a decent rhythm back into my breathing. Lily on the other hand, seemed to start growling.

"Oooh, those nightstalkers!" She stamped the ground, and nearly shook Boone and me off balance. "Always killing my bighorners! Of course I'll help! It'll be nice to give them a piece of my mind." She clenched her fists, but then turned to look at something to her right. I tried to follow her gaze, but I couldn't see what she was looking at. Suddenly, she spoke up again, but she didn't talk to us. "Yes Leo, of course you can come too."

Boone and I looked to each other, not really knowing what to think. I heard ED-E let off a few confused beeps behind us as well.

"Uh… Lily? Are you alright?" I asked. She turned back to look at me, and cocked her head.

"Such a curious little munchkin, aren't you? Don't worry dearie, I'm fine. Just discussing things with Leo here." She turned to look to her right again. "No, Leo! That is a bad idea! It's a very bad idea! It got us in a lot of trouble last time, don't you remember?"

"Who's Leo?" Boone asked, though honestly, I could've said the same thing if I wasn't too busy merely being confused and trying to force more air back into my lungs.

"Leo is a bad man, pumpkin! A very bad man!" Lily said with an affirmative nod. She turned her gaze to her right yet again, and spoke up quite harshly, like she was scolding a difficult child. "Yes you are, Leo! Don't you try and deny it, mister!" She turned back to me, and her voice went back to the normal gravel pit. "He tells me to do things – terrible things! Sometimes the medicine isn't enough to keep him quiet!"

"But… there's no one there." I said, thinking I was stating the obvious.

"Well of course there is, dearie!" She bellowed happily. "How else could I hear him tell me who to **chop**?" Lily said with undisguised enthusiasm.

"So, he's just a voice in your head?" I asked. Now, to be fair, my mind was still reeling just a bit from nearly being crushed; if I'd been thinking clearly, I wouldn't have tried to pursue this avenue of conversation. As it was, though, Lily seemed to get just a bit upset. Her voice got real low, and somehow seemed to echo with a second, even deeper and nastier sounding voice as she spoke.

"You shouldn't say things like that where Leo can hear you, dearie. He doesn't like it."

"Whoa, okay, forget I said anything then." After I said that, Lily stopped growling... and let out a weird, wheezing chuckle instead.

"Aw, don't worry about a thing, dearie. Sometimes Leo goes off like that, but he knows full well if he goes too far, then your granny will make him stop. Isn't that right, Leo?" When she turned, I thought she was going to wait for a response that wasn't coming, but instead, she reached down and grabbed hold of a pipe that was buried in the ground... and in one swift motion, pulled out a giant hunk of metal that must have been at least 8 or 9 feet long and buried up to the hilt like it was nothing. Both Boone and I stepped back out of the way when she swung it around and rested it on her shoulder, like a sword.

"Now... let's go get those nightstalkers off of my lawn!"


	32. Chapter 31: Guess Who I Saw Today?

Chapter 31: Guess Who I Saw Today?

* * *

_The women of New Vegas often ask me if there's a Mrs. New Vegas. Of course there is - you're her. And you're still just as perfect as the day we met. This is Mr. New Vegas, and you're listening to Radio New Vegas. It's just about time to get you some news. The Kings gang in Freeside put an official end to hostilities with the NCR today. An RNV reporter was on hand to speak with The King: "I feel so bad. I think it's time we reconsider, baby." The headlines today were brought to you by Vault 21: Everything's better... when you experience it in a Vault. Coming up next is the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald, reminding us that "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall." If only it would rain in the Mojave once in a while..._

* * *

The peace and serenity of the snow-covered mountain pass leading up the peak of Mt. Charleston was suddenly and irrevocably broken by the bellow of a drunkard.

"Goddamn muth'rfuckin' piece'a shit sonuva bitch! Why'n th' bleedin' crotch've th' antichrist is it so pissing COLD?!" As if to illustrate her point, Cass pulled her jacket closer around herself as tight as she could.

"A bit cold then, are you?" I said, more to wind her up than anything else.

Honestly, I could see where she was coming from. It wasn't snowing, but it was still very cold, and out of all of us, she was the least prepared for it. Boone had pulled that Marine armor and leather duster out of somewhere, so obviously he was warm enough. Last I knew, Veronica was wearing some kind of armor beneath her robe. ED-E was a robot. And Lily, out in front leading us to the nightstalker cave, was... well, she was a super mutant, so who knows if they even feel cold. Even I had zipped up my jacket. Cass just glared at me from under her hat.

"Stop movin' yer face about with noises comin' out've it!"

"Aw, c'mon," Veronica slid close to Cass and put an arm around her; Cass merely huddled deeper into her jacket. "You can't be that cold, can you?"

"You c'n shut up fer a kickoff, yer wearin', like, 15 layers've kevlar!" Cass muttered just loud enough that everyone could hear her.

"I meant because you drink so much whiskey," Veronica added. "I remember reading stories about people using brandy to ward off frostbite before the war. Why wouldn't whiskey work?"

Cass just grumbled something incomprehensible. I shook my head, and sped up just enough to start walking even with Lily. I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask her - foremost in my mind, of course, being...

"Hey, Lily? How much further is it to this cave with the nightstalkers?"

"Oh, don't worry your precious little head, dear!" Lily bellowed, shifting the massive blade in her hands further up her shoulder. "It isn't that much further. And then we can teach those nightstalkers a lesson about messing with my bighorners!" She laughed, a deep, gravely, throaty laugh that reverberated through the ground.

"So, you mind if I ask you a few other questions on the way?" I asked, fully aware of the irony.

"Aw, you want to hear some of grandma's stories? You're such a curious little munchkin. What would you like to know, pumpkin?"

"Well, I suppose I should start by asking where you got that giant sword," I said, pointing at the positively enormous piece of metal resting on her shoulder. She lifted it up, and gave it a few swings when she answered; I had to duck, or else she would've taken my head off.

"This old thing? Oh, I scavenged it off a Vertibird wreck just outside Klamath about thirty years ago. Leo showed me how to make it all ready for chopping!" She rested the sword back on her shoulder and turned away from me to her left. "Didn't you, Leo?"

"So, where did you even come from, anyway?" I asked... and then I started questioning myself. Why was I suddenly so curious and asking so many questions? It took me a few minutes, but eventually I think I figured it out: I'd talked to super mutants in the past, but never at any length. This was the first time I'd ever gotten a real chance to ask a super mutant questions of any kind. I probably wouldn't get this kind of opportunity again. Why not make the most of it?

"Oh, I grew up in Vault 17," Lily said, looking up towards the peak of the mountain. "I never even saw the sun until I was 75 years old - that was when the super mutants raided the Vault and carried the lot of us off..." Her head snapped to the side, and she barked out: "Yes, Leo! I was getting to that part!" She shook her head and turned back to me. "Sorry dearie, sometimes Leo just doesn't know when to shut up! But yes, the Master's super mutants made me one of them, and they put me to work in an army that was going to conquer California!" She said that last bit with a level of excitement and gusto that made me slightly uncomfortable.

"So, who was the Master?" I heard Marcus mention the Master before, but I'd forgotten to ask who he was. I felt like I'd heard the name before coming to Jacobstown, but I couldn't place exactly where. And that's when I realized - this has been happening a lot lately, especially when things start getting odd. Or when super mutants are involved. Which is the same thing, really.

"Oh, he was a nasty man. A nasty, nasty man, dearie. You don't want to know about him. But he was the one who made that super mutant army I told you about."

"You were a soldier then?" Lily nodded... and then shrugged.

"More a spy, really. Sometimes an assassin. I killed a lot of folks for the Master... Yes, Leo, you helped too!" Lily just growled, and shook her head.

"What happened then?"

"That wicked old Master got what was coming to him, that's what!" Lily lifted her sword up above her head, and leaned her face in close to me. I could almost see her try to smile behind the leather face harness. "He was blown up by some boy from Vault 13. And after his cathedral exploded, I decided it was high time to go home..."

Lily got surprisingly quiet after that. The only sound came from the wind rushing through the trees around us, and the footfalls crunching through the snow. Eventually though, I decided to break the silence.

"So, did you?"

"Oh, look!" Lily pointed ahead of us, towards a dark patch in the mountain near a cluster of trees. "We're here!"

* * *

The interior of the cave was a lot warmer than I expected. Once we'd cleared the mouth of the cave and descended deeper into the mountain, the temperature jumped considerably - much to Cass' very vocal relief. Unfortunately, now that we were inside the cave, there was another problem: the deeper we went, the less light spilled in from the outside.

"Man, it's pitch black down here, isn't it?" I asked aloud, as my eyes tried and failed to adjust to the low light.

"Yeah... too bad we don't have any sort of technology to illuminate darkened areas. That would be preposterous!" I heard Veronica say from in front of me, right before she pulled a flashlight out of her robe and a small, thin beam of light cut through the darkness. Ahead of us, I heard Lily's booming voice echoing off the wall.

"What are you talking about? I can see just fine! Yes, Leo, we know you can see too." Nightkin must be able to see in the dark, I thought to myself.

The next thing I knew, I felt like I'd been blinded by a brilliant white flash, or hit with a flashbang grenade. It was enough to knock me off balance, and I stumbled backwards, into the cave wall. Jagged rocks pressed into my back, and I shut my eyes tight, hoping it could save my eyes.

"Sheason! What's goin' on man? Y'alright?" I couldn't immediately tell who was talking, I was so disoriented. I felt a hand grip my shoulder, and another grab my other arm to try and pick me up. With hesitation, I started to crack open my eyes... and was in for a bit of a shock.

Everything in the cave was illuminated in stark, green detail. It was like the cave was lit up by an unearthly green sun. Cass was right in front of me with Veronica beside her, the two of them trying to lift me up. Looking at Veronica's flashlight felt like my eyes were being burned with a blowtorch. Both of them looked at me with illuminated green pupils, and I'll be honest - all of this scared the fuck out of me. I had no idea what was going on.

"Why is everything green?!" I blurted out as they got me back on my feet. "Why are your eyes glowing?" Cass and Veronica both took a step back, and looked at each other like I'd lost my mind. Boone, on the other hand, just cocked his head, like he was thinking.

"Green? What're y'talkin' about?" Cass asked. Before I could answer, Boone put a hand on her shoulder and nudged her aside. Without a word, he leaned his masked face towards me, placed a gloved hand on my face, and used his thumb to hold my right eye open.

"Hey! What are you -" I started.

"Yup," Boone said, letting go of my face. "What I thought."

"What's what y'thought?" Cass asked.

"Those bionic eyes of his must have some kind of night vision."

"Bionic eyes?" I asked, but then I stopped... and remembered something Dr. Usanagi had said after I woke up in her clinic: "_... both the cornea and lens in your right eye had been damaged wholly beyond repair... your right eye had to be replaced with a bionic lens..."_

Given that my vision was the same in both eyes, however... I think she must have replaced both. No wonder she had the look of a mad scientist about her. Note to self: stay away from any more mad scientists in the future. I couldn't help but shake my head.

"When the fuck did my life get so weird?" I asked.

"I dunno. When y'got shot in th' head?" Cass said with a shrug.

* * *

Once I knew it was possible, it didn't take me too long to figure out how to switch the way my eyes saw things - especially since Veronica was lending a hand during the few minutes of experimenting in that cave's antechamber. Being a member of the Brotherhood of Steel meant she was more familiar with bionic eyes than anyone else. All I had to do was describe what I was seeing, and she could tell me what I was looking at.

According to Veronica, I merely had to "think" to make my eyes could switch between different "vision modes." There was "normal" mode, which was just visible light, an image intensifier (the night vision, which turned everything green for some damn reason), an infrared mode (which showed heat as reds, oranges, and whites, on a backdrop of blues and blacks), and an "EM" mode (which showed electrical impulses as bright white on a black backdrop).

"Now, the question is," I asked as we made our way deeper into the cave, "why the fuck didn't Usanagi tell me all of this when I was in her clinic?"

"Who knows?" Cass shrugged.

"Kind of makes me wonder what else she put inside me that I haven't figured out how to work yet..." I tried as best I could to mask the trepidation in my voice.

"I'm more wonderin' why we haven't run into any nightstalkers yet." Cass said. I had to admit, she did have a point. It felt like we'd been walking for a good long while, and making quite a bit of noise besides, and we hadn't seen or heard any nightstalkers.

Which probably meant that what happened next was inevitable, really.

If you've never had to fight nightstalkers, consider yourself lucky. They rank up there with some of the nastier creatures I've ever had the misfortune to come across in the wasteland. From a distance, you could easily mistake a nightstalker for a coyote, or any other kind of nasty, wild, rabid dog that feeds on carrion... but they're a whole lot worse. A nightstalker can be especially nasty if it catches you by surprise. But you will never find a single nightstalker. They always hunt and travel and live in packs.

All around us, the sounds of dozens of rattles echoed off the rock walls. What sounded like a dozen maws or more all hissed and snarled and growled from every direction - in front, behind, to the sides, and even above us.

"Oooh, FINALLY!" Lily's voice boomed over the racket caused by the nightstalkers. There was a much harsher edge to her voice than normal, and I caught a glint of reflected light from Veronica's flashlight off Lily's gigantic sword. "Come on, Leo! Something to **CHOP**!"

I cycled through my eyes as fast as I could, looking around. A flash, and everything was illuminated in green. All I saw were the rocks and the ceiling of the cave. I could still hear the nightstalkers, but I couldn't see anything. I was starting to get just a bit nervous. Another flash, and the cave was washed with blue... and all around me, I could see heat signatures from half a dozen coyote-sized shapes perched above us.

My blood ran cold - I'm sure if I'd taken the time to look, my arms would've shown up blue on the thermal vision. As it was, I didn't hesitate as soon as I felt VATS kick in, and snapped off five shots from Roscoe as quickly as I could. Three of the nightstalkers fell from headshots - one of them was in midair and kept tumbling towards me. There was a white hot blast of energy that sliced through the air above my head, turning another nightstalker into a pile of ash and cloud of steaming vapor. I tried to aim for the remaining nightstalkers, but Lily beat me to it. I could see several slowly cooling animal bodies - none of them quite in one piece anymore, and one of them was still skewered on her sword, like a grotesque giant meat kebab.

"What th' fuck, man!" I looked over to Cass - she had her shotgun out, but the lack of any real heat coming off the barrel told me she hadn't yet fired any shots. "These fuckers c'n turn invisible?!"

"Weren't you paying attention when Doc Henry told us about this?" I asked. "That's why we're here - to find out why they're invisible." I switched my eyes back to normal, and turned on the light from my Pip Boy, shining it on the dead nightstalker that had slid near us. It was no longer invisible.

Like I said before, you can confuse nightstalkers for coyotes from a distance. But there are several significant differences. Instead of fur, for one thing, it has a body covered in scales... and a line of razor-sharp quills poking out of its spine. Its head is the same size as a coyote, but the shape of a rattlesnake - complete with poisonous fangs. And it has a giant rattlesnake rattle on the end of its tail. This nightstalker, however, was slowly leaking a dark-red, viscous, ichor-like blood from a hole in its head.

My inspection of the dead nightstalker, however, was cut short by Lily.

"YEAHHHAHAHAHAAA!" the Nightkin bellowed. "TRY AND HIDE FROM THIS!" By the time I looked up from the nightstalker, Lily had already disappeared from view down one of the tunnels, her raucous laughter following close behind.

"Well?" Boone spoke up, tilting his visor down to me. "Are we going after her?" I noticed that he'd shouldered his rifle, and instead had in his hands that revolver he always kept strapped to his hip.

"Might as well," I said, keeping Roscoe at the ready and switching my eyes back to thermal vision. "If nothing else, she'll attract all the nightstalkers and keep them off us. She can see them, we can't."

So the five of us set off down the tunnel, with me in the lead. I was following a trail of rapidly cooling footprints on the floor of the cave, and relying on my sense of direction and the map making program on the Pip Boy to lead us back out of the cave again safely. The sounds of combat, nightstalkers dying, and Lily shouting ahead of us seemed to ebb and flow; sometimes it sounded like we were catching up, only for the sounds to grow distant yet again. Every so often, I'd see a few splotches of rapidly cooling blood or faintly orange, vaguely animal-like body parts littering the walls and floor of the rocky tunnel.

"Hold up," I heard Boone say from the back. "Something's wrong." I turned to look back at the massed blobs of heat behind me, all of them so tightly packed together that I could barely tell the difference between them.

"What do you mean?" I asked, not sure what he was talking about. I could see a slightly cooler splotch... and then it occurred to me to switch away from heat vision. A pair of flashes later, and my eyes switched back to night vision. And then I realized what Boone had in his hands... "That's..."

"Lily's sun hat." he finished for me. "And the noise has stopped."

I stayed quiet for a minute, putting my ear to the wall, as it were, and realized Boone was right. The cave had become deathly and suspiciously quiet. And that probably meant one of two things: either Lily had killed every single nightstalker in the cave, or...

"C'mon, lets move." I said, switching my eyes back to thermal. I started running down the tunnel, trying to catch up to the footprints before they disappeared from the heat vision completely.

The next thing I knew, the tunnel widened considerably into a large natural atrium. All around the floor of the cave, I could see large pools of cooling blood and large hot chunks of meat and bone and nightstalker parts. At the very back of the cavern, I saw a large figure - presumably Lily - hunched over something, but I couldn't quite tell what it was... until I saw the reddish-orange mass of the super mutant's head rear back, with a thick trail of what was unmistakably hot meat trailing out of her mouth. She was gnashing and snarling, digging into the blob of heat in front of her, and splashing hot blood against the walls.

"Lily?" I said aloud. If nothing else, it got the attention of the feasting super mutant. Lily's head snapped towards me, and her eyes were two white hot pinpoints in the blob of heat that was her head. The super mutant sprang to her feet and rushed towards me; it felt like time slowed down without VATS kicking in. I couldn't tell if she was trying to say anything to me, but all I heard was a loud, low, guttural growling noise that reverberated off the walls of the cavern. Behind me, I felt my friends behind me all take at least a step back, and even ED-E made a series of beeps that sounded surprisingly worried. Or maybe it wasn't surprising...

"LILY!" I finally shouted, standing my ground as the super mutant continued to rush towards me. "Snap out of it!" For a second, I thought my gamble wasn't going to pay off, and I was going to become a dark smear on the cave wall. But just before Lily reached me, she stopped dead in her tracks. She loomed over me, standing at her full height (which I must say, was considerable) breathing heavily, and staring at me with those white hot points of light in her head. It was probably only a few seconds, but it felt like she was standing over me for years. Eventually, her breathing softened, and she started to stagger back, and hunched over. She brought a massive hand up and clutched her head. Even with the thermal vision active, I could tell that her hand was shaking when she brought it to her forehead.

"I... uh..." Lily shook her head. I switched my eyes to night vision. "I'm sorry... about that. I'm feeling... a bit out of sorts, dear." She placed her other hand on my shoulder, and it felt like just by leaning on me she was going to rip my arm out of its socket. I couldn't think of anything else to do except brace myself, and pat her hand in what I hoped was a comforting gesture.

"What's going on?" I heard Veronica whisper behind me.

"Don' look at me, I dunno what th' fuck's goin' on..." Cass whispered back in reply. Boone came up behind me, and handed Lily her hat. Thankfully, she lifted her hand off my shoulder, and gingerly grabbed her hat with a shaking hand.

"I hope you children don't mind, but your grandma isn't feeling well. I'm just... I think I'm going to sit down for a few minutes..." Lily walked away and sat down near the mouth of the atrium, the ground shaking slightly. She just sat there, clutching her sun hat in her massive, trembling hands. For some reason, seeing her sitting there made me feel... sad. I know it sounds stupid, since just a moment ago, it looked like she was ready to bash my skull in. But seeing her like this really drove the point home of just how deep the schizophrenia ran.

Before I could carry on being contemplative, I was broken out of my reverie by a series of beeps and whistles off to my right. ED-E was hovering close to the center of the atrium, and now that my eyes weren't only seeing heat, I could see some very important details that I missed before.

Lying on the ground of the cave was a dead Nightkin - at least, I'm pretty sure that it had been a Nightkin once upon a time. The mutant's body had been mangled almost beyond recognition, like it had been gnawed on, and there was parts of it that had swollen massively around a number of bite marks. Lying next to the Nightkin corpse were two objects. The first was a massive super sledge, bigger than any I'd ever seen before. Of course, I didn't get that long to look at it, because what happened next was something very predictable.

"Oh, baby!" Veronica had appeared out of nowhere beside me and picked up the super sledge. "Ooh, got some weight on ya, don't you just? Little rusty, but... nothing a little love won't cure." It shouldn't still surprise me how easily she can heft up objects that look like they weigh as much as she does. But it still does.

"Found a new toy then, have you?" I said, kneeling down to take a look at the second object next to the dead Nightkin. It was a small metal disk with a keypad on the top, a row of lights running down the side, a few exposed wires, and a small reflective metal dish perched on top - a stealth boy. Like the Nightkin, it looked like it had been chewed on by nightstalkers. I turned it over in my hands, and got up off the floor, showing it to everyone.

"I think we just found out why these nightstalkers are invisible."

* * *

Thunk.

"What's this?" Doctor Henry picked up the stealth boy I dropped onto his desk, unsure of why I was showing it to him.

"I think this is why the nightstalkers are invisible. I found it all chewed up like that in the heart of the nightstalker lair, next to a dead Nightkin." Henry looked a bit skeptical at first, then furrowed his brow, studying the device. He turned it upside down, took a small screwdriver from a drawer below his desk, and popped open a small panel on the bottom of the stealth boy.

"Hmm..." Henry snapped the panel closed, and set the stealth boy back on the desk. "Well, it still has power, amazingly enough. With that cracked casing... Frankly, I'm astonished that exposure to the stealth radiation could induce mutations in the nightstalkers so rapidly."

"Radiation? Hang on, does... I mean, stealth radiation isn't... it's not harmful, is it?" I starting eyeing the stealth boy warily - radiation was never a good thing, and I'd kept it hooked onto my belt the whole way back! I took some comfort in that the Geiger counter on my Pip Boy hadn't clicked at all, but still... Henry just shook his head.

"No. I mean, it's _possible_, but I've yet to see any hard evidence or hear of any cases where humans were negatively affected by stealth boy use, or stealth radiation. Any negative effects have only ever been found in Nightkin - and nightstalkers now, apparently. More to the point, if this cracked stealth boy is the reason for the invisible nightstalkers, then this explains why my research into this group hasn't come up with a cure for the Nightkin. Which means I only have one avenue of research left..."

"Which is?" I asked. Frankly, it was none of my business, but I'd come too far to not be curious.

"I need to run the Mark II test on Lily. It's the only way. I just wish it wasn't so... risky."

"Risky?" I asked. "What's risky about it?"

"The stealth field for the Mark II prototype has been specifically modulated to use less power and, as a result, lasts much longer than a normal stealth boy. For some reason this also means that the negative effects on the user are greatly pronounced - up to a factor of five or more, if my math is correct. These pronounced effects will allow me to pinpoint exactly what parts of the brain the stealth boy is affecting... but unfortunately, I'll need to run the test on a live subject... and the test could potentially cause immediate and permanent mental damage."

"So, why do you need to use Lily?" My mind flashed back to the image of Lily sitting huddled in a corner in a darkened cave, clutching at her hat with trembling hands.

"There are a couple of reasons. For one, Lily is eccentric, certainly, but I've never felt that she was too dangerous." Another image flashed in my head - one of Lily rushing towards me with white-hot eyes and a trail of blood spilling from her mouth. Maybe I wasn't seeing the whole picture, but I didn't exactly agree with that sentiment. He went on. "More importantly, she asked if she could help my research in some way. I've told her about the risks, and she still insists."

"Well, I am sorry that this lead with the nightstalkers appears to be a dead end, and you now have to pursue the Mark II stealth boy project. Really, I am. But does this mean you're going to help us with Rex now?" I asked, trying to make sure he hadn't forgotten about the real reason I was helping him. I looked around Henry's office, and finally saw Rex, fast asleep on one of the examination beds.

"_Going_ to help? Are you implying that I haven't done anything?" The old scientist looked and sounded insulted. "While you were off gallivanting in the hills pursuing a lead that I could not, I was busy examining Rex and running several high-level diagnostics on his cybernetics and circuitry. And, aside from general wear and tear with his joints - which is to be expected with a specimen of his age - my initial assessment was correct. His brain is suffering from an advanced case of neural degradation. If left untreated, his brain will continue to decay at an exponential rate. A year from now, he will be totally and completely brain-dead."

"Is there anything you can do?" I asked, looking over to Rex. The dog's chest was slowly rising and falling, and his tail twitched every so often.

"There is a procedure that can save him, yes. I can reconfigure one of the machines here to scan his brainwaves, and copy the neural pathways onto a holotape. There is one small problem."

"Just come out with it," I gripped the bridge of my nose in exasperation, waiting for the anvil to fall out of the sky.

"If this is going to work, I'm going to need to replace both the bio-med gel in his brain case, and replace his brain with a fresh one. The gel I have enough of - but what I don't have is a suitable canine brain I can use as a replacement."

"And where exactly is he going to get a replacement brain at this hour, Henry?" Arcade spoke up behind me, making me jump slightly. I hadn't even heard him come up behind me.

"There's a woman I know in Novac who can probably help with that. Not that this hour, obviously." Henry stated simply to the younger doctor. Arcade merely looked confused.

"What, you mean Daisy? Daisy Whitman? She won't know where to get a dog brain." Arcade stated flatly. Henry just shook his head.

"No, I'm not talking about Warrant Officer Whitman," a brief flash of worry crossed over Arcade's face, but Henry didn't seem worried about it and continued. "I'm talking about a woman who lives just outside Novac - Gibson. Last time I met her, she was caring for nearly half a dozen hounds of roughly the right size. If she's willing to give one of the older ones up in the name of science, then it should prove a suitable replacement brain."

"I think I know who you're talking about," I said, trying to ignore the ghoulish task I knew he was setting me up to perform. "This Gibson woman - does she own a shop that used to be a garage? Lots of broken down cars everywhere?" Henry nodded. "Yeah, I know her. I bought a thrust control module off her for some ghouls that wanted to go into space."

Henry just sort of stared at me for a minute, one white eyebrow raised over his large, thick rimmed spectacles.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. If you can get me a brain for Rex, I should have all the machinery ready by tomorrow. And with any luck, I'll also be able to run the Mark II test sometime tomorrow as well. There are several machines that will require more precise calibration before I can perform the tests..."

"I guess it's a good thing we got a place to stay tonight, then," I said, nodding. "I'll head out in the morning. I just hope Veronica found some microfusion cells for my car, that's about..." I checked the map on my Pip Boy and figured out the distance in my head. "... yeah, that's about 160 miles there and back." I'd have to leave pretty early if I wanted to be back before noon.

I said goodbye to Henry and Arcade, and started to make my way out of his office. As I was about to leave, however...

"So, how do you know this Gibson woman, anyway?" I heard Arcade ask Henry from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Doctor Henry shrug and smile ever so smugly.

"Well, she and I joined the same caravan about a decade ago when we were heading east. Add in a bit of whiskey and... well... you could say we got to know each other."

"OH GOD!" Arcade clutched his head, and he looked about ready to have an aneurysm. "I can't KNOW that! Why would you tell me that?!"

"You asked."

I closed the door to Henry's office, and just started laughing to myself.


	33. Chapter 32: Stories of Days Gone By

Chapter 32: Stories of Days Gone By

* * *

_I found myself in the middle of a casino. I couldn't really tell which casino... the lights and the general decor reminded me of The Tops - before it was covered in blood and bullet holes - but the color scheme reminded me of the Lucky 38. And when I looked down, it felt like the patterns on the carpet were moving, just like the carpets in Bazooko's Circus. The air was filled with the sounds of a Frank Sinatra song... or was it Dean Domino? Maybe it was Kay Kyser... For some reason I couldn't understand, I couldn't concentrate on any details. _

_The place felt so familiar, and yet somehow so very distant from familiarity. Individual pieces about the decor, the people standing around gambling, the music coming through the loudspeakers... I recognized where they belonged, but they all belonged to different places. Before I could make any sense of my surroundings, I noticed a man in a grey suit, sunglasses, and greasy hair walking towards me. It looked like he was one of the Chairmen... But weren't they all dead?_

_"Sheason Fisher?" the man asked. Without thinking, I nodded. "Your presence is requested at the main roulette table."_

_"Who's requesting my presence?" I asked. The man didn't answer. He just turned and walked back into the crowd. I guess if I wanted to find out what was going on, I'd have to locate this roulette table._

_It didn't take long to find. I just started walking through the casino, and looked around for the biggest commotion. I don't know why, but that seemed like the way to go. It felt like I had to push my way past hundreds of people just to get close. When I finally got within sight of the roulette table, I saw something else: a familiar black and white checkered jacket._

_"Ah, there you are," Benny turned to face me when I arrived, a smile on his face and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He slapped me on the back like we were old pals, and motioned me towards the table. I didn't find it quite as unnerving as I felt like I should. "You're just in time, daddy-o. They've been at it like this for a long time."_

_"Who has?" I asked. Benny just smirked and motioned with his head for me to look up. If I said I was quite surprised, it wouldn't really do my emotions justice._

_Standing at one end of the table, wearing a black suit, a blue striped tie, and an NCR flag pin on his lapel was Aaron Kimball, President of the NCR. His appearance - square jaw, thin pointed nose, the high-and-tight ha__ircut of an ex-military man whose mind was still military __- was exactly as I expected. Behind him had to be half a dozen NCR veteran rangers, wearing that Black Armor Boone had mentioned the other day. Kimball was standing in front of a pile of red casino chips, each one emblazoned with the image of a bear skull; the whole mountain was bet on black._

_Of course, if I was surprised by Kimball playing roulette, I was doubly surprised by the man with his mountain of chips bet on red: Caesar. He looked exactly the same as he had when I'd met him at the Fort, with a red sash draped over both his shoulders, a metal chest plate, and a golden laurel of leaves crowning his head. Behind him were just as many Legion Praetorians as there were NCR Rangers behind Kimball. Caesar had a mountain of chips just as large as Kimball's, except his were black, with the image of a golden bull emblazoned on the face._

_They weren't the only two standing at the table, though. Leaning on the table like he owned it was a man I recognized - The King. Of course, he was the only one I recognized. There was a man next to him with silvery hair, wearing an odd blue robe with bits of metal and wires acting as a sort of weird trim. An old woman wearing a Vault suit and a Pip Boy was standing next to him, her white hair was pulled back into a bun; she was wearing some kind of old world military jacket over her vault suit, with a whole myriad of patches and medals and ribbons pinned in seemingly random places. Hanging around her neck was a necklace of spent shell casings. She was also resting an old 40mm pump action grenade launcher on her shoulder. Standing next to them - but closer to Caesar than the rest - was a huge man with an equally huge black beard, wearing what looked like some kind of armored leather vest draped in animal furs; resting on his head was an old motorcycle helmet with horns on each side and a spike on top._

_"They've been playing for the future of Vegas," Benny said as we came up behind the croupier taking the bets and spinning the roulette wheel. I noticed with a wry sense of amusement that the spinner in the center of the roulette wheel was styled to look like the Lucky 38 - complete with windows and tiny little lights blinking along the sides. "But the funny thing? Even if one of them manages to win, they'll all still lose. Because the House always wins."_

_I couldn't work out why he emphasized the word House... until the croupier turned enough for me to get a look at him. He was wearing an exquisitely tailored tux that looked even cleaner than Kimball's suit. It was like he'd stepped out of the old world and missed the bombs completely. His hair was dark, and parted slightly off center, and he had a fastidiously trimmed pencil thin moustache. And then, when he spoke later... there wasn't any question as to who he was. This was Robert House._

_"So, what do you say Courier?" Benny offered me one of his cigarettes. "What do you say you and me show these crumbs how players get it done?" I took one of the cigarettes, and searched my pockets for a lighter... but I couldn't find one._

_"What's the point?" I asked. "It's roulette - that's a fools game. Like you said, the House'll always win. The only winning move is not to play." Benny just chuckled under his breath._

_"Normally, that's true," He reached into his jacket, and pulled out his lighter. "But sometimes you have to rig the game from the start. You get the scam I'm spinnin'?" He flicked open the Zippo, and to the casual observer I'm sure it merely looked like he was just lighting my smoke... but inside the lighter, I saw something. It was a number: 13. I looked over to Benny with a questioning glance. He just kept smiling, and nodded almost imperceptibly._

_"This will be the final spin of the night, ladies and gentlemen," I heard House say in a voice that seemed insufferably smug. "If you wish to place your bets, I suggest you do so now."_

_Part of me just wanted to turn around, and walk away - it's not like I had any real investment in what happened in the Mojave. This whole game, with nations fighting each other, and people's fates hanging in the balance, this wasn't me. This wasn't what I wanted to do. All I really wanted to do was... _

_I don't know. It suddenly hit me that I didn't actually know what I wanted to do._

_"You better make your decision all quick like, Courier," Benny said from behind me. "You're running out of time, and fast."_

_I turned to ask him what he meant, but I couldn't see him - what I saw instead was the casino, slowly being devoured by a black abyss. The walls were cracking and breaking apart, spinning like the roulette wheel, and falling into nothing. The slot machines and craps tables were tipping into the darkness, and the people who touched the black nothing dissolved into sand and disappeared._

_"Will there be any more bets, ladies and gentlemen?" House said from behind me. _

_I made a decision. I stepped up to the table, and pulled the Platinum Chip out of my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Benny grab House and toss him aside like a ragdoll. I put the Chip down on 13, and Benny spun the wheel. Time felt like it slowed down as the ball spun round the wheel. The ball started to lose momentum... and slid gracefully into pocket 13._

_The people around the table - Kimball, Caesar, The King, and all the rest - dissolved into sand and disappeared. The table dissolved as well, until the only two things left standing in the black abyss were Benny and me. He didn't seem bothered about standing in the middle of nothing. He just kept smoking._

_"You can only delay for so long, Courier. The Bear and Bull are going to butt heads at the dam, and nothing is going to stop that scrap. That fight is drawing closer every day. Eventually, you're going to have to make that choice for real. And if you want my advice?" He tossed the cigarette away, and it disappeared. He reached into his coat, and pulled out the Platinum Chip, tossing it towards me. I caught it without thinking. "My advice is you make that choice... for you. Not for Kimball. Not for Caesar. And definitely not for House. If you don't make the choice yourself, then someone else'll make that choice for you. And you might not like what comes next. Dig?"_

* * *

My eyes snapped open, and it took a minute to get my bearings. I was lying on a bed in a darkened room - one of the cabins in Jacobstown that Marcus had provided as a thank you for getting rid of the mercenaries. I tried looking around to see where I'd put my Pip Boy, so I could get a look at the time... and then realized it was still on my wrist. Had I fallen asleep still wearing it? Maybe I was getting more used to it than I thought.

It was just shy of 2 am, on Sunday, October the 30th, 2281, according to the clock on the Pip Boy. Part of me wanted to just get back to sleep. I didn't wake up in a cold sweat, and I wasn't jerked awake like I was punched in the gut... in fact, waking up this time around was a much more pleasant and agreeable affair than normal. But despite that, I knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep any time soon.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed my jeans, my shirt, my jacket, my boots, my guns... and went for a walk.

Jacobstown at night is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Granted, that isn't exactly saying much when so much else is still irradiated ruins or concrete urban centers built with scraps and whatever else is to hand. But still - nice place to be, all things considered.

Everything was bathed in the blue light of a still mostly-full moon. There was a smattering of clouds in the sky – mostly hanging around the peak of the mountain, still looking more like fog than anything else – and the stars shone brightly down through the gaps in the cloud cover. The wind rustled through the trees... but that wasn't all that was in the air. Heavy footfalls. Movement in the distance. Apparently, Jacobstown was just as busy in the middle of the night as it was in the day.

That was about when I came across Marcus. He was sitting with his back to me on a metal bench in the center of town. A pall of smoke was hanging around his head, illuminated from above by a single working streetlamp.

"Man. A super mutant with a cigar? Now I've seen everything," I said, leaning on the back of the bench. Marcus turned around to look at me with a raised... well, to be honest, he doesn't exactly have eyebrows, so the effect of looking at me with a raised eyebrow was kind of lost. He took the cigar out of his mouth, and let out a thin curl of smoke from his nostrils. "Don't you ever sleep?"

"Do you?" he asked with a smirk. I shrugged and sat down next to him.

"Not enough. At least not lately." I slumped back, letting the back of my head rest on the bench so I was looking straight up. I tried focusing on the stars, but just like in my dream, I couldn't concentrate on any of the details.

"You know, I think I was right about what I said earlier," Marcus took a long puff from his cigar as he spoke. "You do kind of remind me of The Chosen One. He didn't sleep much either. For a human, I mean."

"Yeah... you mentioned him before. What was he like?" I asked. Marcus just sort of looked at me oddly, puffing away at his cigar. I just shrugged. "I could use a distraction. Besides, you got me curious, I'd like to know who you keep comparing me too. I want to know if I should be insulted or not." Thankfully, Marcus got the joke, and he just chuckled.

"You shouldn't be insulted. The Chosen One was a pretty cool guy. A bit... out there, sometimes. But overall, a nice guy."

"Out there?" I asked. "What do you mean?" Marcus smiled to himself.

"Let me put it to you like this - I remember this one time we had to get in this secure Enclave installation, guarded by men in powered armor and laser rifles and all that good stuff, right? And he decides the best thing to do is strip down completely naked and run around the place, yelling at the top of his lungs to cause enough of a distraction to let John and me get in without any trouble."

I think my brain stopped for a minute, trying to process what I'd just heard.

"Wait, what? That... that's insane!" Marcus just continued smiling.

"Yeah, he was definitely a bit bonkers. But I am completely serious. And do you know the craziest thing? That mad son of a bitch came out the other side without a single scratch on him. Every single one of those powered armored bastards that tried to shoot at him had their guns blow up in their faces. Never seen anything like it before or since."

"So, how do I remind you of that? I've never done... anything even remotely that ridiculous. Ever." I thought about it, and most of the ridiculous things I'd done in the past involved me running for dear life away from something ridiculous, not causing the insanity myself.

"It's not you being ridiculous, it's a couple of little things, honestly. Mostly what reminds me are the stories about you that I keep hearing on the radio. Whenever he did anything, it seemed like, everyone in the wasteland had heard about it before we'd even got to where we were going," Marcus said. "Plus, he drove around everywhere like you seem to."

"Really? Was his car a Corvega like mine?"

"Nah, he called it a Highwayman," Marcus took the cigar out of his mouth and blew out a series of smoke rings. "And keep in mind, this was before the NCR established itself and started rebuilding the roads, and way before cars started getting more common up north."

"I'm surprised you fit in his car," I said. And then quickly added "No offense."

"None taken. I know what I look like. I'm an ugly mutant, and big son of a bitch, too. I filled up the whole backseat. John always took shotgun, though. Which was kind of fitting, since that was his weapon of choice." I couldn't help but chuckle.

"I guess it must run in the family," I said. "Cass always calls shotgun whenever she can get it."

"Yeah... There's a lot about that girl that takes after her old man. The love of shotguns, the love of whiskey... It's too bad she never found out what happened to him."

"What, do you know what happened to her dad?" I asked. Marcus just shook his head.

"No, that's the trouble. A little after we nuked the oil rig, everyone who followed The Chosen One just sort of... drifted apart. Dogmeat, Cassidy, Vic, Lenny, Miria, Skynet... even Goris the albino deathclaw. Never found out what happened to any of them after we grabbed the GECK and brought it back to Arroyo."

"... An albino deathclaw." Part of me was wondering if I'd somehow passed out again and was just imagining all of this.

"Yup," Marcus just continued on, unphased by my question. "I thought she might know what happened to her old man, but apparently she's just as in the dark about it as I am. Shame."

"Did that Chosen One dude seriously travel with that many people? And how the hell did a deathclaw fit in a car? What, was it a convertible?"

"Not at first." Marcus said with a smirk. I just laughed. "Actually, that's another thing about you that reminds me of him. He liked to collect people, too."

"I don't collect people," I said, straightening up a bit in the bench. Marcus just shook his head slightly.

"Yeah. You're just travelling with an eyebot, a drunken caravan boss, a Brotherhood of Steel scribe, an NCR 1st Recon sniper, and scientist from the Followers of the Apocalypse." Marcus looked smug, puffing away at his cigar. "Sure you don't collect people."

"Hang on, how did you know Veronica's a member of the Brotherhood?" I asked. Marcus just shrugged, and tightened one of the vices on his orange shoulderplate.

"Kid, I've probably forgotten more about the Brotherhood than any of you have ever known, and it was all thanks to an old friend. The name of this place, Jacobstown? I named it after Jacob, a Steel Knight. He and I used to talk for... days. About everything. Found out everything I know about the Brotherhood from him."

"I thought the Brotherhood hated mutants." Marcus chuckled softly to himself as I said that, like he was laughing at a joke only he was in on.

"Yeah, well... that's a long story. Want it short, or the whole thing?"

"I got plenty of time. Let's hear it."

"Alright. This was after the Master and the FEV vats were destroyed. Didn't have anywhere to go. One day, I was wandering the desert... some damn place, out in the middle of nowhere, I don't know. What I do remember is the sun - dead set above me in the center of the sky. Next thing I know, I see this fool in powered armor coming towards me."

"Really?" I asked. Marcus nodded.

"That was Jacob. a Knight of the Brotherhood. Apparently, he'd sworn some oath to destroy muties. Well, we tussled for a while... Heh... Probably a day or two. I lost track, honestly. It started off simple enough. He shot at me, I shot back. That went on for a while, the both of us running and shooting, that kind of thing. Eventually, we both ran out of bullets, so we tried to beat the crap out of each other with whatever was close - and after everything else got broken, we just started beating on each other with our fists. Days of this went on, and neither of us could get the upper hand. After a while, we just started laughing. What was the point?"

"So... what? You two just decided to stop trying to kill each other and become friends?"

"Something like that, yeah. After we stopped fighting, the two of us just... started walking. Walking, and talking, and arguing. What else were we gonna do, right? Next thing the two of us know, other people started following us. Guess they figured if they weren't safe with a mutie and a Steel Knight, safe just wasn't going to happen."

"So what happened next?"

"The two of us and whoever else was following found an old uranium mine. We built a town around it, and named it Broken Hills. Everybody was welcome - human, ghoul, mutant, didn't matter, long as they acted right. Kind of like here, really." Marcus took a long draw from his cigar; when I'd arrived, the cigar looked like it had only just been lit, and now it looked like there was only half of it un-smoked.

"So what happened to Jacob?" Marcus just shrugged.

"Dunno. We founded Broken Hills in the summer of 2185. When spring came the next year... he said goodbye and moved on. Never saw him again." Marcus sighed. "I still miss that hard-head."

The two of us just sat on that bench under the street light in silence for quite a while before either of us said anything else. When it finally came, it was Marcus that broke the silence.

"It's been a long time since I told that story. A very long time. Not many people are curious enough to ask."

"Let me guess..." I said, rubbing my chin in mock contemplation. "The last person to ask you was The Chosen One." Marcus chortled.

"D'you know? He was." The two of us started chuckling softly... but then Marcus stopped, and looked off into the darkness. "Hey, Sheason?" He said eventually. "Do you think you can do me a favor?"

"It all depends on the favor, but probably. What's up?" I asked. Marcus took the stub of cigar out of his mouth, and gestured with it to a spot off in the distance.

"Do you think you could talk to Lily? She was a bit shaken up after your trip into the nightstalker cave, and wouldn't say why."

I looked to where he was pointing, and switched my eyes into nightvision. Everything was bathed in green, and I could see that he was pointing towards the bighorner pens. Lily was there, standing next to one of the bighorner calves. The super mutant in the sun hat was gently patting its hide. She was also holding something in one of her hands, but I couldn't quite make out what it was at this distance.

"Alright, I'll talk to her, but... why me? Just because she thought I was her grandson when I first met her?" I asked, switching my eyes back to normal.

"Pretty much." Marcus said with a nod of his head. I sighed, shook my head, and got up off the bench. Before I got too far though, Marcus spoke up again. "There's one last thing. There's a lot about you that reminds me of the Chosen One. But there's one thing that doesn't. The most important thing - the thing he shared with his grandfather, the original Vault Dweller, who beat down The Master and destroyed his plans for Unity."

"And what's that?" I was getting quite curious, now.

"Conviction. Some men heed the call to action, and can rise above it all. But most just run away. Jacob heard the call and embraced it. So did the Vault Dweller. So did the Chosen One. All of them fought for what they believed in, and fought hard. If all humans fought for what they believed in like that, we wouldn't have needed the Master's plan in the first place. And I don't see that conviction in you. Not yet."

* * *

I had a lot to think about as I made my way towards the bighorner pens. I didn't get too much time to think about it, however, because at that moment ED-E floated up near me.

"Hey, ED-E. Guess you can't sleep either," I said with a smirk. "Did you hear any of that?" As if in response, ED-E let out a series of four shrill beeps, and then a voice came from the speaker - just like it had a few days ago when I was helping out the ghouls go into space.

"Download complete. Begin recording. Navarro outpost scientists, I am glad that ED-E has reached you. You will find several databanks of information on this machine. Please handle this information with the utmost care as it represents the sum total of the results of my research on the Duraframe Eyebots. There are also several databanks with information on my research into Poseidon Energy and some projects they were working on in the Mojave area."

Like before, the voice ended just as suddenly as it began.

"ED-E, what the fuck was that? Seriously," I asked. In response, ED-E bobbed to the side, and let out a few beeps and whistles. I shook my head. "I don't know why I keep asking you questions, I can't understand the responses."

* * *

ED-E kept following me. He'd probably been following me since I left my cabin, but now he was being a bit more obvious about it. When I finally got close to Lily, she had her back to me and I heard some odd voices. I thought for a minute that ED-E was broadcasting another recording - but it was actually coming from the small metal device in her hand: a holotape recorder.

"Grandma's here!" I heard a young girl's voice, followed by a pair of children yelling in joy and excitement.

"Oh, my goodness!" I heard an old woman speak up from the holotape speaker. "Look at these little angels. Becky, that dress looks so lovely. And Jimmy! Oh, my word, how you've grown."

"I'm four whole feet, grandma!" I heard a young boys voice.

"Did you bring us presents, grandma?" The girl spoke up again.

"Well now, I don't know," the old woman spoke up again. "Have you been good to your mommy and daddy?"

"Yes!" Both the boy and girl spoke up simultaneously.

"Well then..." the grandma started speaking again, but before she could say anything else the recording ended in static. Lily hit one of the buttons and put the recorder away.

"Lily?" I asked, trying not to be too surprising. The super mutant turned to look at me, and I could tell she was trying to smile behind the leather face harness.

"Hello again, dear!" Lily's gravelly voice rumbled, in stark contrast to the voice of the sweet old lady on the recording. "What can your grandma do for you?"

"I just wanted to check on you. You seemed a bit shaken up after we got back... especially after what happened in the cave. Are you alright?" Lily took a massive hand, and patted me on the shoulder; it was like she was trying to be gentle, but it still felt like someone smacking a tent spike with a sledgehamer.

"Oh, pumpkin, grandma's sorry about that. Sometimes she gets mad and... listens to Leo when she really shouldn't. The medicine is supposed to help with that, but sometimes grandma doesn't take it."

"Medicine?" I asked, and then I remembered - she'd said something about medicine when I'd first met her. "What kind of medicine are you taking?"

"Doctor Henry calls them 'anti-psy-ko-tiks.' I don't really know what they're supposed to do. I don't take it all the time."

"Why not?" I asked. Lily sighed. It was a deep, grumbling sound.

"Sometimes, it makes grandma forget things... she doesn't want to forget, pumpkin," With that, she pulled the holotape recorder out of the medical box she had strapped to her chest. "That's why I have this."

"Yeah, I heard a bit of that. What is it?"

"This is a holotape from the last time I visited my grandkids," Lily said, looking down at the machine in her hands. I was a bit surprised with how carefully she cradled it in her massive hands. "Such sweet little children, you know. Little angels. Sometimes... sometimes it's hard to remember them. I take this old tape out from time to time and... listen."

"And that's why you don't take your medicine all the time?" I asked. Lily nodded slowly.

"It keeps me calm, but... it makes my memory go all fuzzy. That's why I only take my dosage every other time." Lily made a noise... I couldn't quite tell what it was. It sounded like it could've been her trying to laugh softly... but it sounded a bit like soft sobbing. I couldn't tell.

"That way, at least... I can remember their faces..."


	34. Chapter 33: Live and Let Die

Chapter 33: Live and Let Die

* * *

_Good morning Mojave, and it's looking to be a lovely day out there in the wasteland today. You're listening to Radio New Vegas, and this is Mr. New Vegas, bringing you the melodious sounds of the world before. Got some Dean Domino coming up later on in the program, but right now it's "Let The Bright Tomorrow In" by that starlet of sweet, sweet music, Vera Keys._

* * *

"You sure you guys aren't gonna get too bored while I'm gone? I mean, I'm just going down to Novac, so I shouldn't be too long, but if you guys want to tag along..." I asked Veronica , but she just smiled and shook her head.

"Don't worry about it. We all have plenty to keep us busy up here for a few hours while you're off finding a brain." The way she seemed so accepting of the idea that I needed to find a dog so I could give it's brain over to Doc Henry... All I could do was shake my head.

"I still can't believe I have to find a dog's brain. When the fuck did my life get so weird?" Veronica just shrugged.

"I dunno, but I'll be honest - finding a replacement brain for a cyberdog? Not the weirdest thing you could be doing. Hell, there's some weird shit I've had to do for the Brotherhood in the past... not that they'd ever find anything odd with it." Veronica shrugged, and just smiled wider. "But what can you do? Just take it in stride, and keep smiling. That's what I do!"

"I envy you for that." I turned to ED-E floating next to me. "So, what do you say buddy? You following me?" ED-E bobbed in the air and chirped happily. "Alright, cool. Let's get the fuck out of here." I started walking toward where I'd parked my car, but before I got too far...

"Hey Sheason? Head's up!" I turned just in time to see a large burlap sack hurtling through the air straight at my face. I felt myself grimace, and I leaned back quick as I could; the sack seemed to follow my face before I reached up and snatched it.

"What the hell, V! What's this?" I asked. She just looked surprised - and pleased - at me.

"That was a nice catch. And that is a sack full of microfusion cells. Should keep the car running for a good long while." I looked in the back, and it was indeed full of MF cells - and a few small energy cells, and I think one electron charge pack.

"Thanks. I didn't think you'd actually be able to find anything, to be honest."

"Hey, it's me!" She pounded her chest and gave me a thumbs up. "Give me enough time, I can find anything. You can owe me later."

"I'll keep that in mind. C'mon ED-E, let's get out of here." With a mechanical chirp, ED-E followed me as I made my way to where I'd parked my car. Before I got a chance to leave however, I heard a voice try and get my attention.

"Hey, Courier! Hold on a minute!" The voice I heard was gravelly, but not like a super mutant. It was the kind of destroyed-vocal-cords you got from ghouls. I turned around just in time to see a female ghoul with thin wisps of red hair, grey pants, and a brown leather jacket walking towards me.

"Yes? Can I help you?" I asked. And then it hit me - it took me a minute to recognize her without the labcoat. "Hang on, you're Henry's assistant, aren't you?" She nodded.

"Yeah. I was wondering - can I hitch a lift? The doc asked me to pick up a few materials for Rex's operation - and the Stealth Boy Mark II test - and I gotta go down into the valley to pick them up. Nevermind that it'd take me the better part of two days to get down there and back on foot, he only just told me this morning."

"Sure," I said with a shrug, checking the map on my Pip Boy. "Westside's on the way, so it won't be any trouble. I'll drop you off wherever you want, pick you up after I find a, er... brain. Sound good?" She nodded and I got in the Corvega. "Alright then, get in."

ED-E sped off ahead of me before I'd ever got the car started. When we got underway, clear of the Jacobstown gates and onto Kyle Caynon road, I decided to try and make conversation with my ghoul passenger.

"So, I never did catch your name back in Doc Henry's lab," I said. "I'm Sheason. You know, so you don't have to keep calling me Courier, right?"

"Well, it's nice to meet you Sheason," the ghoul rasped. "I'm Calamity."

"Calamity?" I asked. She nodded. "That's an..." I paused, searching for the right word. "... interesting name."

"Why thank you," Calamity smiled, what little there was left of her lips cracking and pulling taught. "I picked it myself."

"What? Wait, what?"

"Yeah. I change names and jobs every decade or so. Keeps things from getting too boring. I picked Calamity this time because I thought it sounded nice. And as for being Henry's assistant... I've never really done much science stuff until now, but apparently I'm pretty good at it. Or so the good doctor tells me."

"That... makes sense. I guess. For a minute I thought your parents had named you Calamity." She shook her head.

"Nah, they weren't big enough hippies to do that. Probably. I'll be honest, I don't really remember what my original name was."

"What, really?" I asked. "You don't know your real name?" She just shrugged.

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. And a ghoul by any other name would look just as hideous." She brought a leathery hand up to her mouth, and made a noise; I wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a cough. Now, I had to admit... she had a point. Not that I'd ever say something like that out loud or to anybody's face. Still, I hate it when someone starts slinging insults their own way, and... well...

You know when you have one of those awful moments where it feels like there's a loose connection between your brain and mouth? And by the time you realize what you're saying, it's already come out, and you've already said it? And then you just take a step back and think to yourself: "That just happened. That was me saying that. That seriously just came out of my mouth."

This was one of those moments.

"Hey now, don't put yourself down, saying things like that. Good lookin' gal like yourself? You look great, c'mon!"

I can't really blame her, but Calamity just sort of looked at me like I'd completely lost my nut... and then she started laughing. There was no mistaking that for a cough or a growl, this was straight up belly laughter.

"That's sweet of you. I appreciate the effort, but I know what I look like. I mean, hell, there are some days it feels like my jaw's going to come loose. If you'd said that, I dunno, couple hundred years ago maybe, I'd be more inclined to believe you. But now..."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I was a helluva looker before the bombs dropped." She paused. "I think. I don't quite remember everything from before the War. Sometimes I get bits and pieces, but it's... not all there. Not all the time, you know?"

There was a long silence. I focused on driving back down the mountain, and Calamity rested her head on her hand, looking out the passenger window as the scenery kept on rolling by. And then she broke the silence.

"I will tell you this much - I'm absolutely positive I didn't fuck enough when I still had skin."

* * *

I dropped Calamity off outside one of Westside's gates - near a big sign that pointed down at a manhole cover and said, in a large sign made out of bits of scrap metal and red paint: "THE THORN." I told her that I'd be back in about two hours. Before I drove off, I made a mental note to check up on that Thorn place at some point in the future. I don't know why, but... there was something about the sign that was familiar. I couldn't quite place it.

The drive down to Novac was surprisingly calm and uneventful - so uneventful, that I decided to stop by the Gun Runners, and see what they had in stock... just in case the drive suddenly became not calm. The way things in my life had been going lately, I half expected to be ambushed or attacked or blown up or something. Instead, it was just a peaceful drive, just me, the car, and ED-E buzzing alongside. No sound but the rumble of the engine and the wind rushing past the car. The empty horizon stretching out in front of me, and the mountains off in the distance...

And that's when it hit me: since coming to the Mojave, I hadn't gone for a drive just for the hell of it. Since getting that damn Platinum Chip, I'd only ever gotten behind the wheel when I had some place to be.

Back when I was still working in California, there'd be times between jobs when I would just get in my car and go for a drive - not to anywhere, not for anything, but just experience the joy of being behind the wheel and going as fast as the car could take me. Driving along I-5... no one around. Nothing to hit. Nothing to distract me. The sensation of speed and the adrenaline hit I get when I stamp my foot down on the accelerator. Just... me, driving along in my metal shell. Time to think, time to work things out... and time to have fun.

I was so lost in thought, that before I knew it, I found myself on the outskirts of Novac, pretty close to Gibson's garage. I was about half a mile away, if that, when I realized the car was starting to shudder rather alarmingly - my foot was hard down on the accelerator, but the revs were erratically jerking between 4 and 7 thousand RPM. I looked at the fuel gauge, and saw that it was hovering perilously close to empty. So I pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road, and decided to walk the rest of the way. No real need to replace the cells right now, I thought, so I'd refill the car when I got back.

The outside of Gibson's garage was almost exactly how I remembered from a week ago. ED-E hovered next to me, softly beeping as we went along. We were about fifteen feet away from the two rusted cars leaning against one another when I saw a trio of dog heads pop up from the roof and stare at the two of us. They didn't bark, they just sort of... stared at me. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it felt like they knew why I was here.

"Yeah, that's not unnerving or anything..." I said; ED-E beeped a couple of times like he was agreeing with me. I looked around the courtyard, but couldn't see anything too out of the ordinary - except the large overhanging garage door was open. "Hello?" I called out. "Miss Gibson? Are you around here somewhere?"

"Over here!" I heard a voice call from within the fence next to the garage. I had to tiptoe around a few scattered bits of junk littering the yard, and work around a maze of old cars. There was a sound of wrenching metal, and above me I saw Old Lady Gibson on top of one of the cars, pulling out what looked like a gearbox. She was wearing a pair of grey overalls covered in dirt and grease. "Oh, hey! You're back!" I nodded, and she leapt down off the pile of cars with surprising agility for a woman of her age. "Looking for any more obscure and hard to find rocket parts?"

"Not today," I shook my head. "I'm actually here on behalf of Doctor Henry." Gibson looked surprised for half a second, then leaned against the pile of cars and started taking off her oil covered gloves.

"Doctor Henry? Now, you surely don't mean Doctor Adolphus Henry, do you?" She just smiled to herself. "Now there's a name I haven't heard in years. Hard to believe he's still alive. Then again, he was spritely enough ten years ago..." She started smiling to herself, and I coughed, trying my best not to look uncomfortable. "So... what does he want with little ol' me?"

"One of your dogs," I said, cutting to the chase. She immediately stopped smiling.

"I'm sorry, what?" Her face was skewed up in surprise.

"Doc Henry is trying to heal a dying cyberdog. He sent me your way because he remembered that you have lots of dogs, and... well, to be honest, he needs a brain to complete the operation." Gibson shook her head, and scoffed.

"Now isn't that just typical?" She folded her arms across her chest. "He never calls, he never writes, and the only time he wants anything to do with me is when he _needs_ something. I should really give a piece of my mind to that assh-"

"Hang on a sec," I said cutting her off. I resisted the urge to rub the scar on my temple, despite the headache I felt forming. "I'm just the messenger here. I don't know anything about your past with Henry, and frankly, I don't want nor care to get involved in other people's personal lives. All I know is that he sent me here to get a dog, and that you might be willing to part with one. Now, I know it's a bit ghoulish - frankly, it's been an odd couple of days - but do you think you can help me out?"

Gibson just stared at me silently for a while, continuing to lean against the pile of cars. Eventually though, she sighed, uncrossed her arms, and put her hands in the front pockets of her overalls.

"As it happens, I think I might. One of my dogs, Rey, is getting pretty old. He's gonna be 16 in a few months. His back legs have arthritis, he's lost the sight in his right eye... I'll probably have to put him down before long. If you promise me that Henry will send him out in a beautiful dream, and not just carve his brain out... then yes, I'll let you take him to Henry"

"What's the catch?" I asked, already knowing exactly how this was going to go. She shrugged.

"Rey's like family... and I have other dogs to take car of. 700 caps sounds about right for the price for this favor. What do you think?" I sighed.

"Yeah... that sounds about right.," I sighed. "Gimmie a minute, I need to grab the money from my car." I started walking away, while ED-E was hovering around the cars, beeping about something. Before I left the courtyard, I turned back to Gibson. "Just curious - is there anything you'd like me to tell Doc Henry when I get back to him?"

"Yeah, there is something," she started walking towards me - and then socked me across the jaw. "Tell him that for me, would you?"

"Damn, that's a decent right hook..." I rubbed my jaw. It was a good hit, surprisingly enough from a woman of her age. Gibson just shrugged and smiled.

"There's a reason I lived long enough to be called 'Old Lady' Gibson, remember."

* * *

My car was right where I left it. Since I was here, I figured I'd change out the MF cells in the engine as well - get everything done in one go, right? But first, to find the money. I popped the latch on the trunk, and started shifting around everything - including one of the rifles I'd picked up from the Gun Runners earlier - until my cash box came in sight. I was about to start counting out the caps when ED-E hovered right next to my right ear and started beeping and whistling loudly. It was a frantic kind of beeping, almost like he was worried.

"ED-E?" I asked, turning to face the hovering eyebot. "What's going on?" In response, ED-E shoved his speaker grille right into my face, like he was trying to push me back a few steps. For half a second, I thought maybe ED-E had finally blown a vacuum tube, like Arcade was always trying to warn us about... And then I looked past the eyebot. Off on the other side of the highway were four figures coming over a ridge. I couldn't make out any details about...

My chain of thought was suddenly broken by a loud bang, and the sound of a ricochet bouncing off my car.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I yelled. Instinctively, I dove for cover behind my car, and pulled Roscoe out of his holster. The air erupted in gunfire, and I heard what sounded like dozens of bullets whizzing through the air and ricocheting off my car. ED-E belched out some triumphant marching music that I almost didn't hear over the gunfire before flying off. With any luck, ED-E would draw their fire and give me a chance to fight back - maybe even kill one of them with that laser of his.

I tried to look up over my car to see who was attacking me, and maybe see if there was anything other than my car that I could use for cover. I only saw three figures now, and one of them was firing up at ED-E; the eyebot was buzzing around, popping off a few blasts from his laser. The middle of the highway was littered with a row of concrete Jersey barriers, and on the other side of the highway I saw an overturned semi, complete with a cargo trailer. I slipped into VATS, taking aim with Roscoe and squeezed off a few shots... and that's when I saw it.

Crimson. The men attacking me were Legion.

A bullet smashed into the corner of my car's windshield, sending tiny shards of glass flying everywhere, and I ducked again. Roscoe wasn't doing anything - there was a rifle that I'd picked up at the Gun Runners in my trunk, along with a couple of grenades and I -

There was a wrenching sound of metal snapping next to me. I looked to my right, and saw there was now a massive hole in the passenger door. Whatever they were shooting me with, it had enough punch to shoot through both layers of steel reinforced Kevlar inside the doors and come out the other side.

Screw it. Roll the dice.

As quick as I could, I reached into the open trunk of my car, and grabbed the first weapon I could see - one of the microfusion cell grenades I'd used at the Fort. In a fluid motion, I pulled the pin and tossed it as hard as I could towards the advancing Legion soldiers. I didn't see exactly where it landed, but there was a bright green flash and a sound like a million methane bubbles exploding all at once. It was enough to obscure them from my sight - and hopefully, me from theirs - and I took the opportunity to grab the M4 carbine I'd picked up from the Gun Runners and a few more grenades from the trunk.

I pulled back the charging handle on the old M4 with my left hand as hard as I could, and started to run - but before I got far, I was face to face with the fourth Legionnaire. He was wearing armor that looked like it had been cobbled together from fallen enemies - including what looked like a looted helmet from a set of powered armor. He was holding a large metal rod in both hands; at first I thought it was a spear, but it wasn't sharp. There were a number of small hoses and pipes running along the rod, and there was a small flame on the end.

It felt like I couldn't even use VATS. I brought the rifle up and pulled the trigger without even bothering to aim. The rifle barked and flashed, and there were sparks everywhere, but I couldn't tell if I'd even hit him. The Legion soldier just kept charging, bringing the metal rod up like he meant to skewer me. That's when I realized what he was holding: a modified thermal lance - an oxyacetylene torch designed to burn through iron, steel, and concrete.

I dodged out of the way just in time - there was a long surge of flame, a burst of acrid smoke, and a shower of sparks from the end of the lance next to me as the Legion soldier tried to drive it into me. He was so close I could practically smell him... if the smell of the thermal lance wasn't overpowering everything. It felt like time slowed down, so I did the only thing I could think of: I grabbed the middle of the lance, and tried to wrench it out of his hands. He held a firm grip on it, but I was able to force the lance further away from me... and watched as the thermal lance burned into the concrete in a shower of sparks and foul smelling smoke, burying itself at least a foot into the ground.

I didn't have time to celebrate; the Legion soldier swung a massive fist towards my face. I bent backwards, dodging the swing by inches, if that. I held onto the lance with my free hand, and with my right still holding onto the pistol grip of the carbine, I shoved the barrel right at the helmet's visor and pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash from the muzzle, and the bark of the rifle discharge, but the bullets didn't exit out the back of the helmet... it sounded more like they entered in one side, and rattled around a bit. The Legion soldier lost his grip on the spear, and fell backwards.

A bullet impacted with the roof of my car, reminding me that I'd stayed still for too long. I didn't have time to think, I just had time to move. Off to the side, I could hear ED-E still buzzing around, firing laser blasts as quick as he could. I ran for the nearest piece of cover that wasn't my car, firing off in the general direction of the Legion soldiers. I'd just about made it, when ED-E flew right next to my head beeping frantically - there was a bang, and ED-E was knocked out of the sky, landing behind one of the Jersey barriers.

"ED-E!" I yelled. The eyebot flew up again, his movements through the air more erratic than normal. I heard a few bullets hit the concrete barrier, and a fragment of one of the ricochets clipped me in the right shoulder, above my bicep. I cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, hiding behind the concrete block. I gripped the carbine tight, unsure of how many rounds I still had left.

"Quickly! Surround him!" I heard one of the Legion soldiers yell. ED-E was circling above me, still trying to draw their fire. I grabbed one of the grenades, and pulled the pin.

"Surround this, you son of a bitch..." I growled through clenched teeth, tossing the grenade over the concrete barrier. I shut my eyes and braced myself. The ground shook, and I felt a wave of heat wash over me.

It was now or never. I emerged from the barrier before the green flame of the MF cell grenade had finished dying down, and slipped into VATS as fast as I could. There were still three targets up. A Legion soldier with a rifle, one with a submachine gun, and one in the back with a large sniper rifle. None of them were wearing helmets. I took aim and fired. The one with the submachine gun was hit in the side of the head, and fell, his gun firing wildly in the air.

I leapt over the barrier and advanced, firing at the Legionnaire with the sniper rifle. His attention was focused on ED-E, giving me a clean shot. Another burst from my M4, and his neck exploded in a shower of blood. The sniper rifle clattered to the ground, and his head smashed into a nearby rock when he fell.

That left one Legionnaire to deal with. I swung the carbine around to aim at him, and realized with a mounting sense of dread that he had done the same to me. I squeezed the trigger, and hoped against hope that I faster on the draw. It felt like both rifles fired simultaneously. My upper left thigh screamed in pain, and I'm sure I'd been shot... but I saw the Legion soldier fall as well, blood erupting out of multiple gunshot wounds on his chest.

The highway fell silent... until ED-E came to a stop near me, letting out a burst of victorious marching music. I let the carbine rifle fall to my side, and I finally gave myself the relief of breathing again. It was ragged and heavy, and I felt myself go lightheaded. I checked the radar on my Pip Boy. It didn't show any more hostile contacts... but I looked at the Legion soldier with the rifle that I'd just shot, and I could see he was still moving slightly, not quite dead.

I looked around, and walked over to the dead Legionnaire who'd shot at me with the sniper rifle - and saw that it wasn't really a sniper rifle. It was like one of those four-foot long rifles I'd seen at the gun runners: a .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle, designed and built before the war to disable tanks. No wonder they'd been able to shoot through my car so easily. I shouldered the M4, and I picked up the massive rifle, checking the magazine. Four of the massive .50 cal rounds had been fired, leaving four left.

I walked over the Legion soldier lying on the ground - he was still moving, desperately trying to reach for the rifle that had fallen nearby. I finally got a look at the rifle - like the carbine slung across my back, it was some kind of marksman carbine, but the foregrip was lined with air vents and four Picatinny tactical rails. A scope was mounted on the top rail. I kicked it away from his hands and planted my boot on his chest. He winced, and a trail of blood started to leak out of his mouth.

"You know, for a group that claims to hate technology, this is some pretty impressive kit you got here. A thermal lance used for industrial welding, marksman carbines with tactical rails, rifles designed to punch through tanks... If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were all massive hypocrites." I leveled the massive rifle directly at his face. And when I say it was massive, I mean it: I was standing up on top of him, and it felt like I had the stock practically welded into my shoulder, but the muzzle brake on the end of the barrel was still only about an inch from his nose.

"Alright, the way I see it, I got two options here," I said, trying to sound as dangerous as I could. "I could let you live, so you can head back to the Fort and tell Caesar and Vulpes and whoever else wants me dead that I'm not going to be so easy to kill. Or..." I pulled the bolt back, and then shoved it forward again, just so the Legionnaire under my boot knew that a .50 cal round was now chambered. "Or, I could just kill you right now - and when none of the assassins return, that should get the message across just as well. Don't you agree?" The Legionnaire just looked at me with utter contempt.

"Kill me or release me, Courier." He coughed, and blood splattered out of his mouth. "It will make no difference. Cæsar has marked you for death, and he will never call off The Fox or his men from the hunt. Every member of the Legion will be after your head."

I made it look like I was considering that for a minute. In the end, I just shrugged.

"Damn."

I braced myself for the kickback, and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

I considered myself extremely lucky. For as many new bullet holes there were in my car - including the massive one in both the driver and the passenger door, and the chunk taken out of the upper right corner of the glass in the windshield - none of them had managed to hit anything too vital. All the tires were still inflated, and none of the bullets had even gotten close to damaging the engine. Not only that, but I'd grabbed all the discarded weapons, as much ammo as I could carry, and anything else I thought could be valuable - which isn't stealing, because they attacked me, which makes it mine by international law of Go Fuck Yourselves.

As for the looted weapons, there was the anti-materiel rifle with 19 .50 cal rounds left, the marksman carbine and about 52 rounds of 5.56mm caliber ammunition, and the extremely box-like submachine gun - which turned out to be chambered for 12.7mm bullets - along with close to 70 of the 12.7mm rounds. For those of you who don't know, 12.7mm is the civilian version of the .50 caliber round, designed for use with pistols and submachine guns rather than rifles. The rounds are positively massive. I ended up leaving the thermal lance buried in the ground.

When I finished taking stock of the weapons and ammo, I realized that I was actually in quite a bit of pain. And not the normal kind of exhausted pain you get from an adrenaline crash. Then I remembered - I'd been shot a couple of times. I took a look at my right arm and left leg, and thankfully none of the bullets had actually gotten themselves lodged in my skin. So, I pulled out one of the medkits in my trunk, and used one of the stimpacks. As the skin knitted itself back together, I took a look at ED-E, remembering that he'd been shot as well. The outside of his chassis was dented where he'd been hit, and one of the stabilizing jets on his underside was slightly cracked, but it wasn't anything too serious.

In the end, I replaced the microfusion cells in the engine's cylinders, I handed Gibson the cash, and she let me take the dog. When I finally got back to Westside, Rey was sprawled out across the backseat. I half expected him to stick his head out the back window like Rex had, but apparently he just wanted to sleep. Calamity was waiting for me where I'd dropped her off, and slung across her back was a large sack, full of... stuff. Honestly, I couldn't quite see what all she had.

"And what sort of time do you call this?" She rasped, looking at the watch on her wrist. "What, did you stop for drive-through on the way back or something?"

"No, I just got ambushed by Legion assassins and nearly died." I said as nonchalantly as I could. She scoffed, obviously not believing me. I pointed at the back seat. "I got the dog, though."

Calamity opened the backseat, and put her backpack in the footwell. Rather than getting in the passenger seat though, the ghoul bent down over the dog, and placed a hand on the dog's chest with a concerned look on her face. Then she turned to me.

"You do realize this dog is dead, right?"

"What?!" I turned around in my seat to look at Rey sprawled out on my backseat. "He wasn't dead when I got him. Are you sure?" She nodded.

"It's not breathing, and that usually indicates that something is dead," she said, apparently unconcerned. She just shut the back door and got in the passenger seat.

"Well, fuck. Is this going to be a problem?" I asked, trying to see if I could salvage this situation. Calamity shrugged.

"If I'm honest, it smells like the dog died recently - probably within the last half hour or so. The brain will decay the quickest, but if we get the corpse to the doctor before rigor sets in, Henry should be able to preserve it long enough to complete the operation."

"So, you're saying the quicker we get the dog to Henry, the better off the operation will be?" I asked. Calamity nodded. "Then put your seat belt on, and hold onto something."

"What are you-" The ghoul was interrupted by a squeal of spinning tires, and the speed of the car peeling away as fast as possible shoving her back into the seat.

Time to see how fast my car can go up a mountain road on a full charge.


	35. Chapter 34: Of Stealth Boys and Nightkin

Chapter 34: Of Stealth Boys and Nightkin

* * *

_You're listening to the Mr. New Vegas show, your little jukebox in the Mojave wasteland - only on Radio New Vegas. You know what time it is folks - time for some news. Tensions between the Kings and the NCR may have cooled down in the last several days, but gang violence is still very much present in Freeside. Visitors to the area should exercise caution, especially after dark. The news this hour has been brought to you by Primm: The other New Vegas. Coming up next is Bob Crosby and the Bobcats, taking us "Way Back Home."_

* * *

"Holy shit, careful! That's a tree!"

"I'm not gonna hit the tree!"

"Hairpin! HAIRPIN!"

"Calm down already!"

"ROCKS!"

"Shut up and let me drive!"

Calamity was freaking out and shouting almost all the way up the mountain. Honestly, you'd think she'd never gone up a mountain road around hairpin corners at 80 miles an hour before. I mean, that's what the handbrake is for, right? She did eventually quiet down - because she was too busy covering her eyes to do anything else.

Thankfully, when I got to the Jacobstown front gates, they were open. So I just kept my foot on the gas, and powered on through, aimed straight at the lodge house where Doc Henry had set up his lab. I felt the bottom of the car go light as it hit a massive bump, and then a horrendous crash when the tires hit tarmac again. I spun the wheel, yanked on the handbrake, the car started sliding sideways... and came to a stop about 5 feet from the front door in a cloud of tire smoke.

"Well, c'mon," I said to Calamity, turning off the engine and opening the door. "Let's get the dog into the lab." I looked up, expecting Calamity to still be sitting there, but all I saw was an empty seat and an open passenger door.

"You are completely mental!" Calamity yelled, her raspy voice cracking. She was reaching into the backseat of the car, pulling out her backpack. "I will never, ever, ever complain about walking anywhere ever again, just so long as I don't have to go anywhere with YOU behind the wheel, you fucking maniac!" And with that, she ran into the lodge and slammed the giant double doors behind her. ED-E beeped something unintelligible.

I just sighed. I wasn't driving _that_ fast. Still, at least she could've helped me with the dog. I reached into the backseat, and grabbed the dog by the chest, lifting it out of the car. It hung limply in my arms, and I grunted - this dog was surprisingly heavy. But then, it would have to be, wouldn't it?

"Need any help there?" I heard a voice say behind me. I hoisted the dog onto my shoulder and turned to face Cass, who was eyeing me with amusement.

"I think I can handle one dead dog," I said, trying to ignore the feel of the matted fur pressing against my face. Instead, I just kept going forward. Next thing I knew I was in the good doctor's office, and boy... was I in for a shock.

The office was almost nothing like I remembered it. There were more things cluttering up the space. I'm just glad I wasn't claustrophobic. There were machines that obviously hadn't been there before, and when I looked down, I couldn't see the floor for the masses of cables and wires. A few of the bigger conduits had metal footplates draped over them to keep people from tripping, but the vast majority of the cables afforded no such luxury. The largest machine in the center of the room looked like it had been constructed out of several cannibalized solar panels, with the strangest looking ceiling fan bolted above it - instead of fan blades, metal boxes protruded from the center off metal sticks. Behind the machine, I could see Calamity ditching her jacket and pulling on her labcoat, while Henry took a look through the bag of odds and ends she'd brought back. Arcade was also busy at work on one of the computers in the back, typing away at something. Oddly enough, he had ditched his labcoat somewhere. Laying next to him on one of the last remaining examination tables was Rex, fast asleep, and with several large wires hooked up to his brain and his other mechanical parts, connecting him to one of the nearby machines.

"Hey, doctor?" I said, I thought loud enough to be heard. Henry didn't seem to notice me, so, very carefully, I stepped over the wires and made my way further into his office.

"Hmm... yes, yes... This will do nicely..." Henry was turning a small device over and over in his hands, seemingly oblivious to everything else around him. "You've done well, finding this. Get this installed right away, would you Calamity?"

"Doctor Henry!" I said right behind him. He just turned to look at me with... was that annoyance? "I found a dog. I think it's brain will work, but... it... he kind of... well, died on the way up."

"Well don't just stand there," he said, grabbing me by the shoulder and ushering me to the unoccupied examination table next to Rex. "Let's take a look at him, examine his potential." I set down the dog on the table... and was quickly ushered away by Calamity. Henry reached above him and grabbed what looked like the glass from an old TV, surrounded by metal and dials and buttons, and mounted to an extending metal scissor arm. He turned it on, the screen flickered, and a blue and white image of the dogs brain appeared on the screen. "Alright, let's see here... neural pathways look good... definitely a breed of guard dog... Excellent! It will take a few hours to complete the procedure, though. I'll call you when we're finished."

* * *

Cass was leaning against my car when I got back outside. Before I even got a chance to say anything, she rapped one of her knuckles against the car door, right next to the gaping bullet hole.

"So... I'm guessin' you had some fun," Cass said with a smirk. I just shrugged, and leaned against my car next to her. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know. Nothing I can't handle." I tried to be cool, but Cass just chuckled.

"Yeah, I'll bet," Without another word, she reached behind her and pulled out her flask. She started unscrewing the cap... and then her hand slowed to a stop, until she was just staring at her still closed flask. After a few seconds of staring, she sighed.

"Hey, Cass? You alright?" She shrugged, and finished unscrewing the cap on her flask, taking a drink.

"Yeah, m'fine. Jus'... thinkin' is all."

"Okay... what are you thinking about?" She shrugged, and offered me her flask. "Thanks," I said, but I couldn't help notice that she wasn't looking up. I took a swig, let the whiskey burn down my throat, and handed it back to her.

"I dunno. Stuff, mostly... Been thinkin' 'bout th' next caravan site a lot... th' one on th' map?"

Ah.

"What about it?" I asked, already feeling like I knew the answer.

"Well... s'like this. We know where it is, right? An' there's nothin' stoppin' me from headin' out there right now to find out what's what..." Cass sighed heavily again. "But we haven't."

"Yeah... I was gonna say something, but I thought it best to wait until you brought it up." I paused, thinking for a minute. "You know, we could go right now." Cass looked up at me from under her hat with a raised eyebrow.

"What, now? Y'mean, now-now?" She gestured back at the lodge with her thumb. "But what about Rex? An' Veronica? An' Boone? An' Arcade?"

"Don't worry about it," I smiled, and waved it off. "They can all keep for a few hours. We can head down there, see what's what, and then head back. Easy. I mean, hell, I made a promise." Cass just looked dumbfounded. Finally, she shook her head.

"No... no, s'alright. We don' have t'go righ' now. But... thanks. Offerin' t'just drop ev'rythin' like that, an' drive me out all that way, I... thanks." She raised her flask to me, said "Cheers," and took a long swig - if the flask wasn't empty by now, I'd be thoroughly surprised.

"Don't worry about it. I'm your friend, that's what friends are for. But... I have this feeling there's something else at work here. It's almost like you don't want to visit that x on the map." Cass stayed quiet for a while; the only noise came when she started fiddling and fidgeting with her flask, screwing the cap back on and turning it around in her hands.

"When I asked you to take me to th' first..." She gulped audibly. "...to th' wreckage of Cassidy Caravans, I didn't know what t'expect. I jus' wanted to pay my respects to th' dead. I thought I'd be able t'say g'bye, and then that'd be th' end of it. But now, s'like my caravan was just..." She trailed off. Eventually though, she put her flask away, and looked straight at me. "Y'ever get a feelin' in yer gut? Like... you know somethin' bad is gonna happen, but you can't put yer finger on what exactly?"

"Sometimes, yeah," I nodded my head. "You getting one of those gut feelings yourself?"

"Yeah... I jus' got this nasty feelin', deep in th' pit've my stomach. Like... when we get there, I'll find th' answers I was lookin' for, but... no matter what, I'm not gonna like what I find. It's almost like..." Cass grimaced, like she was trying to search for the right words to express what she wanted to say. "Have y'ever had nightmares?"

Part of me wanted to start laughing uncontrollably right then and there. Another part of me wanted to exposit in great detail, and at considerable length all the nightmares I'd been having ever since killing Benny at the Tops. Nightmares about the people I'd killed, nightmares about Caesar and Kimball, about House and Vegas. I wanted to tell her about the floating, spinning rubix cube; and the neverending hallway; and the ICBMs turning the Mojave into a brand new radioactive wasteland; and Daniel Wyand talking to me with a hole in his head; and Benny rigging the roulette wheel; and all that was left of the memories of people I used to know dissolving into sand; and Victor burying me alive; and Benny's broken, mangled, bloody face reforming into my own. I wanted to tell her about waking up in the middle of the night, breathless with sheets soaking from all the cold sweat.

I wanted to tell her all these things.

"I've had a few, yes," I said eventually. And that's all I said on the subject.

"Well... I've been havin' one th' last couple've days," Cass said. "S'always th' same dream. I'm walkin' down this canyon, an' suddenly, there's this fork in th' road. Both path's are covered in darkness. Can't see anythin' down either one, but I can... I dunno, it's like I can feel somethin'... Just when I'm 'bout t'make a choice, th' ground drops out from b'neath me, an' I wake up." Cass sighed. "I dunno why'm so nervous 'bout this, y'know?"

"Listen, Cass..." I patted her on the shoulder as I talked. "This whole caravan thing? It's all you. I'm following your lead here, so I'll only take you there when you're ready. And I'm not gonna force you to go out there if you don't want to, either."

"I know, s'just..." Cass screwed her face up until a look of determination fell across her features. "Tomorrow." That was surprising.

"You're sure?" I asked. Cass tipped her hat back and nodded.

"Yeah. Not gonna put this off any longer. Tomorrow morning sound good?" I nodded back at her.

"First thing tomorrow morning, we'll go visit the next caravan site. I promise."

"Alright. Good. Yeah... this is... good." Cass slumped against my car, and the two of us just leaned against my car in silence for a few minutes.

"Hey, do you want to get something to eat?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"I thought you'd never fuckin' ask. I'm starving!"

* * *

There isn't anything even remotely restaurant-ish anywhere in Jacobstown, but we did eventually find enough food to make a couple of sandwiches. And even better - Cass found four bottles of beer! The two of us ended up having lunch sitting on the hood of my car, bullshitting about nothing. The conversation wasn't quite so heavy as it had been earlier, thankfully.

"How th' fuck didja survive all that anyway?" Cass asked, finishing off her second beer. "I mean, four Legion assassins come after ya, an' you get outta there without a fuckin' scratch?"

"Well, to be fair, I came out with a couple of scratches," I rubbed my arm where I'd been hit with the ricochet earlier. From behind me, I heard a few weird beeps - it sounded like ED-E was annoyed. "Yes, ED-E, you were a great help, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." The eyebot responded with a pair of satisfied sounding beeps.

"Still, that's impressive. Didn't think y'had it in ya."

Suddenly, the car started shaking. I looked around, guessing at the source, and saw Lily walking past us towards the lodge.

"Hey, Lily. What's up?" I asked, downing the last of my beer.

"Oh, hello dearie! Doctor Henry told me he'd be ready for me in his lab about now. We're going to test out the Stealth Boy Mark II!" Lily boomed in undisguised enthusiasm.

"Are you sure about helping Henry with his experiment, Lily?" I asked. "I mean, he told me yesterday that the procedure is... risky. Sure you want to go through with it?"

"Oh, look at you, all worried about your grandma!" Lily came over and patted me on the head; it was all I could do not to fall off the hood of my car. Off to the side, I heard Cass start laughing. "I know it's dangerous, but it'll all turn out for the best, you'll see! I should really go to him now. Don't want to keep him waiting!" She ruffled my hair, and turned on her heels into the lodge.

"Heh... you look like a damn goof," Cass said, and I realized I was lying down so low, my head was almost touching the hood. I straightened myself up, just in time for Cass to stop chuckling. "So... we gonna go in and watch?"

"Of course," I said, jumping off the car.

* * *

By the time Cass and I entered Henry's lab, Lily was already standing in the middle of the machine I'd seen earlier that looked to be made out of solar panels. Her hat and goggles were nowhere to be seen, and a number of sensors hooked up to wires were stuck to her skin. Calamity and Arcade were both standing behind computer monitors and technical equipment, while Henry was busy putting the finishing touches on the machine Lily was standing in. Lily turned to look at us when we entered, and it almost looked like she was trying to smile behind her leather face harness.

"You came to visit! How lovely. You're just in time for the fireworks!" Lily said. Henry looked out from behind the machine at us, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, it's you," he said, closing the panel and walking towards us. "You're welcome to stand and observe the experiment if you want, but please, stand back - I don't want any erroneous readings."

"Doctor Henry!" Calamity rasped from across the room. "All of the equipment is hooked up and ready."

"We can start the test as soon as you give the go ahead," Arcade perked up from his station, and gave Henry a thumbs up. It was then I got the first look at Arcade since he'd started helping Henry last night... and it looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. There were massive dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was rather disheveled. He had ditched his labcoat, the sleeves on his shirt were rolled up, and the top two buttons were open.

"Excellent," Henry reached inside his coat, and handed Lily what looked like a Stealth Boy. It didn't look any different from a normal Stealth Boy, but then again, I don't know about these things. "Let's go ahead and start the test."

The floor rumbled, and the air was filled with a loud, low frequency hum. The fan blade above Lily started to slowly turn around just as she strapped the Stealth Boy Mark II to her wrist. What looked like two tiny plastic satellite dishes dropped out of the top of the machine, pointing towards Lily. The solar panels behind her started to glow a faint blue around the edges.

"All right Lily," Henry said, stepping back from the machine. "Power on the Stealth Boy."

Lily nodded, and lifted up the arm with the Stealth Boy strapped to it. She punched a few buttons, and with a blue-electric flash, and a belch of ozone, Lily disappeared... except she didn't quite disappear completely. The sensors connected to her were still mostly visible - the wires still looked solid, but the suction cups faded in and out, and what I could see almost looked like it was underwater. The fan, the solar panels, the satellite dishes, all of them started sparking slightly with blue electricity, and bits of Lily started to fluctuate in and out of visibility.

"Urgh..." Lily grunted, and the half-visible silhouette moved a little. "Feels... strange. Strange but good!" The fan above her head started spinning slightly faster.

"Interesting," Henry said. "Alright, try thinking aggressive thoughts now. Think about smashing a radscorpion!" The silhouette started shaking again, and the lights around the machine shifted from a light blue to a blue green. Lily started growling.

"Nyah-ha-haa! Lily smash!" I could hear Lily laughing, and the stealth field fluctuated even further; I couldn't tell if it was because she was moving, or because something was going wrong.

"How are those readings looking Calamity?" Henry called out. The ghoul assistant was hunched over one of the machines in the back of the lab.

"The stealth field is unstable, and scrambling things," Calamity yelled out over the ruckus caused by the machines. "The readings say gamma wave activity is zero... but that can't possibly be right! Must be a result of the interference..."

"Arcade? What does your readout say?" Henry said, turning to the blonde doctor.

"I'm getting the same thing on the anti-mass spectrometer, Henry. Gamma wave activity is zero, even with the processors clocking in at 20 petaFLOPS. This can't be just a result of any interference."

"Alright, alright, we're done here," Henry sighed. "Calamity, Arcade, shut down the machines. Go ahead and power the Stealth Boy down, Lily."

"Awww... I liked having it on!" Lily said... but then a moment later, there was a crack of ozone and Lily became completely visible.

The low frequency hum that had permeated everything for the past few minutes finally died down, and the electricity slowly stopped arcing. The satellite dishes folded upwards again, and the fan above Lily slowed down to a crawl, before finally coming to a stop.

"Well, that was... different," Cass said, tipping her hat back.

"So Henry," I stepped over a few cables and approached the doctor. "Do you think this experiment was a success?" He shrugged in a very non-committal fashion.

"I'll have to get back to you on that in a moment, once I've analyzed the results..."

THUD.

Everyone in the room shut up, and turned towards the direction of the noise - the door leading out to the rest of the lodge. It sounded like someone was -

THUD.

Someone was beating against the door. It was either being hit with a battering ram, or a super mutant was hitting it with a fist the size of my head. Almost on instinct, I started to reach for Roscoe sitting in my holster.

THUD.

The door handle splintered, and flew off the door into the room; the door itself swung open on its hinges, smashing into the wall behind. A blue skinned Nightkin filled the doorframe to such an extent that I couldn't see anything behind him. He ducked, and slowly walked into the room, each footfall shaking the floorboards with a resounding stomp. From the way he carried himself - and from the sound of his voice when he spoke, which I recognized from a few days ago - I realized that this was Keene, self-proclaimed leader of the Nightkin in Jacobstown. He looked around the room, his eyes finally settling on the Stealth Boy Mark II in Lily's hands.

"Well, well, well..." Every word was spoken with a careful exactness, and the sort of danger that would make my skin crawl if it wasn't already threatening to shake my teeth out with the volume. "Congratulations on getting the Mark II prototype functional doctor. Now... just hand it over, and we'll be on our way."

"We...?" I heard Henry ask. Keene merely advanced towards Lily, each step slow and dangerous.

"Yes, we. My kin and I. There are caches of Stealth Boys out there - hundreds, maybe thousands. With the Mark II in hand, it shouldn't be all that difficult to upgrade each and every one of them."

This was turning into a very bad situation very quickly. I looked around - Henry, Calamity, Arcade, not even Lily was going to stand up to Keene. If he got his hands on the Mark II... an image flashed in my head of hundreds of invisible and crazy super mutants cutting a bloody swath across the wasteland. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I stepped between Keene and Lily.

"Hold on, Keene - you can't take the Mark II," I held out my arms in what I hoped was a disarming gesture. The massive super mutant just got close, and loomed over me.

"Ah, the human Marcus let in. Step aside. My request is perfectly reasonable. Give us the Stealth Boy specs..." he brought up a massive fist, and held it several inches from my face. "...and there will be no need for us to splatter the room with your insides."

"Keene, listen to me, please. The Mark II's are even more dangerous than normal Stealth Boys. If you take it..." Keene cut me off.

"Our lives, our decision to make," he growled menacingly. "We're tired of sitting around Jacobstown waiting pointlessly for a cure that will never come."

"It's not pointless! Henry is close to finding a cure..." I felt something tug at the back of my mind, and I turned back to Henry, desperation in my eyes. "You **are** close to finding a cure, right?" Henry was next to Calamity, looking over the computers and the readouts.

"Yes, I believe so. This test may have been short, but it has yielded reams of useful data."

"You see?" I said, turning back to the massive Nightkin standing in front of me. He just kept scowling. "If you and the rest of your Nightkin leave Jacobstown now, the Stealth Boys will just make your conditions worse. Not only will you never get a cure - but none of your kin will get a cure, either. You'll ruin everything Marcus has set up here to help you and your kin get better. I know you said it's your choice, but what you do in the wasteland is going to affect everyone: humans, ghouls, mutants, Nightkin: everyone. But you didn't think about that, did you?"

Keene regarded me carefully for a few moments. His breathing sounded almost like a low growl, and he scanned the lab with a scowl. I could practically feel the thudding of my heart beating in my ears. His expression was completely unchanged - though, I couldn't tell if that was from the leather straps holding his mouth in place.

"No... no I didn't. Not until now." He growled. "Very well, human. You've made your point." Keene snorted, and turned on his heels. Just as he ducked to leave the room, he clutched the top of the doorframe, and turned back to face me. "I'll withdraw my request... for now."

Keene left without another sound, and I finally let my arms lower to my side. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and afforded myself the luxury of a soft chuckle. For a minute there, I was sure Keene wasn't going to go for that, and I was going to be little more than dead meat.

"That was incredible!" I heard Henry say from behind me; I turned, and saw that he was now holding the Stealth Boy Mark II in his hands. Lily was no longer in the machine, and was off to the side, putting her sun hat back on. How long had I been standing here? "I've never seen anyone able to talk their kind out of anything once they had their mind set to it."

"Just tell me one thing, Henry. Do you think you got enough from this to find a cure for the Nightkin's schizophrenia?" I asked, still breathing a bit heavy. Henry screwed up his expression, his already impressively wrinkled face filling with even more lines.

"Well... yes and no." He sounded worried - and honestly, I didn't blame him.

"What?" was all I could think to say. Cass spoke up behind me.

"Didn't ya jus' say you got 'nuff from th' experiment?" Cass scratched her head, displacing her hat slightly. "I'm confused."

"To be fair, we collected a lot of useful data, like I said, and I'm a lot closer to a cure than before, but... I'm not sure that this brief test will yield a cure any time soon." Henry looked down at the Stealth Boy in his hands. "However, if Lily were to continue to wear the prototype..."

"Don't worry about a thing, Henry!" I heard Lily say, walking up behind the doctor. "I'm just happy to help!"

An image flashed in my head from Lily in the cave: wide eyed and wild, blood pouring from her mouth... completely feral and mad, ready to kill anything and everything in front of her. And the Mark II would only make that _worse._

"There's got to be another way," I said, trying to wrack my brain for something. But I'm not good with all this science stuff, especially something specialized like this. And if Henry couldn't even see any alternatives...

"I have an idea," I heard Arcade speak up, still behind his console. Everyone in the room turned to get a look at him. "Why don't you use neuro-peptide stimulators on a nightstalker brain? As long as the brain is properly preserved in bio-med gel, then it should produce results similar to a live specimen." I was just about to ask Henry if he knew what Arcade was talking about, when Henry's expression changed from worry to elation.

"That's... Arcade, that's brilliant!" Henry said with laughter in his voice. "Simple, yet elegant. I can't believe I didn't think of that! Arcade, I think you may have cracked it!"

* * *

About an hour after the Mark II experiment, Henry announced that the brain wave mapping transfer... whatever it was he did to Rex, was completed and the dog was ready to go. Cass, Veronica, and Boone were gathering up their things to get ready to leave and head back to Vegas, while Arcade... he was slumped in the passenger seat of my car, completely passed out. ED-E and I went into Henry's office to meet the cyberdog - but Rex beat us to it. Before I even crossed the threshold of the door, Rex bounded up towards me and started barking happily.

"Hey there, Rex. How're you feeling, boy?" I knelt down, and gave the cyberdog a scratch behind the braincase, and he barked again, nuzzling into my hand. "Well, you're certainly looking better."

"Yes, Rex should be fine for the foreseeable future. That new brain has revitalized him considerably. With any luck, he'll still be functioning long after you and I have fallen into dust."

"I'm sure the King will be happy to hear about that," I said, getting up. Rex sat down at my feet; I think he was wondering why I'd stopped scratching him. "So, is that it?"

"Yes. Thank you again for all your help with the Mark II test. I know it was a bit of a hassle, but you really were a considerable help. If everything continues to go like it has been, Calamity and I should be able to find a cure by the end of the month." I waved him off.

"Hey, I didn't really do anything. I just got a few things where they needed to go. After all, I am a courier." I smirked, and Henry laughed.

"Quite. Oh!" The old doctor snapped his fingers. "Before I forget, Marcus told me he wanted to talk to you before you and your friends left town."

"Alright, I'll go talk to him. But before I go, there was one more thing I wanted to ask you." Henry raised an eyebrow, and I continued. "I remember you said earlier that the Nightkin aren't allowed to use Stealth Boys here, right?"

"Correct. Every Stealth Boy we could find has been confiscated, so they're not tempted to use them." That's what I thought.

"Alright... so where are they?" Henry narrowed his eyes and still looked confused.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I had an idea," I said. "How would you like to remove their temptation completely?"

* * *

After everything else I'd done, part of me wanted to just leave town without bothering to see what Marcus wanted, but... well, Marcus was a decent enough guy. I should at least see what he wanted. So while everyone else was trying to corral the cyberdog in my car, I went looking for Marcus.

"Hello, Courier," Marcus said when I finally found him. He was leaning against one of the cabins, with his arms folded across his chest.

"No cigar this time?" I asked. Marcus just smiled and shook his head.

"Nah, I don't smoke in the middle of the day." He got up off the wall, and started tightening one of the vices on his orange shoulder plate.

"So Henry told me you wanted to speak to me?" I asked. Marcus nodded.

"Yes. There's... something I need done, but I've been hesitant to send someone from Jacobstown to check up on it. Well... someone else." Marcus sighed.

"Go on, I'm listening."

"Jacobstown... it wasn't my first attempt to help muties here in the Mojave. There was another place, at an old weather station at the peak of Black Mountain. Long story short, a crazed Nightkin called Tabitha arrived, and convinced the second-gens that she was some kind of prophet."

"Second-gens?" I asked. Marcus shrugged.

"Second generation super mutants. Results of the Enclave's experiments at the Mariposa ruins. Well... I don't want to say they're a bit dim, but, to be honest, the Enclave wasn't as good at making mutants as The Master. The point is, I sent one of my best infiltrators - Neil - to Black Mountain a few months ago to check on things. At first the reports were pretty regular, but I haven't heard anything from him in a few weeks. It's like he's gone completely dark."

"Let me guess," I said, holding up a hand to get him to stop. "You're worried about him, and you want me to go and check on him, so you don't have to send anyone else from here, right?"

"Not worried, really. I know Neil can take care of himself. I was just thinking, if it's not too much out of your way, do you think you could swing by Black Mountain at some point? There shouldn't be any rush, you know." Marcus looked hopeful, and I just sighed.

"I'll see what I can do."

* * *

It was a surprisingly calm trip back to Freeside. I'm not sure what everyone else had got up to today, but only myself, Boone, and Rex, stayed awake for the trip back. And even better, the King was absolutely thrilled to see Rex again.

"Why Rexie! You look all better boy!" It almost looked like Rex was going to jump into the King's arms. Instead, the King knelt down to hug his cyberdog, and Rex started licking the King's face. "Ha ha! Aw, you're good as new! Did my Rexie get a new brain? Yes you did!"

"Should I leave you two alone?" I asked, trying to hold back a laugh. The King shook his head, but kept smiling, and stood up. Rex sat by his feet, looking up at the King, and panting heavily and happily.

"Naw, I'm just happy to see my pup back on his feet and happy. You're a man of your word, no doubt about it. I can't thank you enough for this," the King said, shaking my hand. "You've helped us plenty around here in Freeside, so I'll tell you what. Just this once, name whatever you want, and if I can make it happen, it's done."

"Hey, don't worry about it," I said, trying to wave it off. "The last few days were pretty fun. Bit dangerous, but hey, what isn't?"

"I'm serious. You've done right by me, and I want to do right by you. Don't rush it, though. Toss it around in you head a little. You only get one favor from The King."

"Fair enough."

* * *

"So, all that nonsense is over and done with," Veronica said, leaning against my car next to Cass. Boone was leaning on the other side, Arcade was still slumped in the passenger seat asleep, and ED-E was buzzing around above us. "What do you want to do now?"

"Well," I shoved my hands in my pockets, and thought. "We started all this nonsense in Freeside a couple of days ago with lunch. How about we go for some dinner?"

"Sounds good t'me," Cass said with a smile. "Hey, how 'bout we go back to th' El Cortez? There was a steakhouse I wanted t'check out last time we were there."

"Maybe I can pick up where I left off with the blackjack tables," Veronica said, looking up at ED-E hovering above her. "I still haven't forgiven you for that, you know. I was just about to make a killing when you came to fetch us the other day!"

ED-E let out a beep that sounded suspiciously like he was blowing a raspberry.


	36. Chapter 35: Answers and Conflict

Chapter 35: Answers and Conflict

* * *

_Welcome back to the program, I'm Mr. New Vegas, and it looks like it's gonna be another gorgeous day out there in the Mojave Wasteland. Got some news later on in the program, but first the weather. It should be a rather pleasant day out there, with highs in the greater New Vegas area hitting the 77º mark, alongside mostly cloudy skies. The sandstorms along the I-15 between Primm and the Mojave outpost are finally starting to die down, but travelers should still exercise caution. Coming up next is one of my very favorite songs, just for you: It's Peggy Lee and the Dave Barbour Quintet, asking "Why Don't You Do Right?"_

* * *

You know, when Cass said she wanted to leave first thing in the morning, perhaps it was foolish and naïve of me to expect to leave first thing in the morning.

It was a little after 11 a.m. when I stepped into the kitchen-dining room, and I still hadn't seen anything of Cass. Or Veronica, for that matter. Boone and Arcade, on the other hand, were both here. Arcade was up by the counter, fixing himself some kind of drink (tea, from the looks of it) while Boone was sitting at the table in front of a massive amount of guns on top of a greasy sheet laid out on the table. All told, there were several dozen cleaning supplies, his DKS-501 (disassembled), his scoped hunting rifle (also disassembled), a .38 double-action revolver, a .44 magnum revolver, a 9mm pistol, a weathered looking N99 10mm pistol, and a small frame pistol that couldn't have been chambered for more than .380 ACP.

I let out a slow whistle. "Damn, Boone. That's an impressive collection you got going there."

"You're not the only one who visits the Gun Runners," Boone said with a shrug. He picked up the .38, blew though the barrel, and used one of the brushes to start cleaning it.

"Boone, do you honestly have to clean your guns here? I don't think the dining area is the place for this sort of thing," Arcade said, sipping on the tea he'd made. Boone stopped cleaning and looked up at Arcade, confused.

"What do you mean? Only place with a table big enough." He had a point, given the two rifles in front of him, I'll give him that much. Arcade just chuckled, and set his mug on the counter.

"Of course, of course. In that case..." Arcade walked over to Boone's workspace, and picked up the small frame pistol. "Every well-bred marksman knows that the small concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting." He punctuated his point by clicking the slide back in place, and set the pistol back down with a smile; Boone just stared at it... and then he smiled back, chuckling a little. Personally, I thought it was hilarious.

"Hey, have either of you guys seen Cass?" I asked, leaning on one of the chairs. "I haven't seen her all morning."

"Have you checked Veronica's room?" Arcade said, reaching for his tea.

"Seriously?" I asked. "They can't **still** be going at it, can they?" I heard Arcade snort a laugh, and try to hide it behind the mug. "Wait, what am I saying?"

"Sure they can," Boone said, returning to his guns. I couldn't help but sigh.

"Right. Well. Needs must," I got off the chair and started to walk out. "I'll see you two later. If I can drag the two lovebirds apart, Cass and I are gonna head out for some business."

"Have fun!" Arcade gave a weak mock-salute. All Boone did was look up from his pistol, and nod slightly.

I walked out into the main hallway of the suite, trying to figure out how best to go about disturbing those two (Should I knock? Should I just wait outside the room until they're finished? Should I roll a flash bang in there to get their attention?) when a solution was presented by the problem solving itself. I'll be honest, that was a bit of a surprise because, as I'm sure you're quite aware, that just doesn't happen with me.

Cass was standing at the threshold of Veronica's room. She was fully dressed, had her shotgun slung across her shoulder, and she looked ready to go... except for the fact that she and Veronica were locking lips through the cracked-open door. Honestly, they looked like they were searching for each others tonsils. Veronica was wrapped in a sheet, and her (surprisingly long - it went to the middle of her back, at least) black hair was falling loose around her. Veronica took a hand, gently caressing the side of Cass' face, and ran the tips of her fingers through red hair...

Ahem. I went somewhere else there for a minute, I apologize.

My trance was finally interrupted when the door shut, and I suddenly realized where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. Cass walked towards me, face flush but otherwise unassuming; it looked enough like the "whiskey blossoms" she got when she drank too much that I started questioning if I'd actually seen what I thought I saw, or if I'd just imagined it.

"So, y'ready t'go?" Cass asked, hitting the button to call the elevator. I just rubbed my eyes and sighed.

"Look, I know I said I wasn't going to force you to do anything, but what sort of time do you call this? You said you wanted to leave first thing in the morning, and it is now-" I lifted up my Pip Boy to check the time. "-precisely on the dot of 11:07. Hardly the break of dawn here." The elevator dinged and the doors slid open with that eerie silence. Without even waiting for the doors to open fully, Cass rushed inside.

"Waitin' on you now."

* * *

"So..." We were about 5 minutes into the drive. Cass had settled in, and was busy drinking from her flask. "How do Veronica's tonsils taste?"

"Sorry, what?" Cass lowered the flash, and wiped her mouth. "I wasn't payin' attention. What was that?"

"I said, how are things going with you and Veronica?"

"Umm..." Cass looked a bit nervous, and quickly took another drink from her flask. "Fine? Things'r goin' jus'... fine, y'know?"

"Really?" I asked, thoroughly unconvinced.

"No, not really. Well, I mean, yes, it's... but it's..." Cass sighed, and took another drink from her flask - and then upended it, revealing just how empty it was. "Fuck. S'complicated, alright?" Cass reached between her legs and under the seat, pulling out another bottle of whiskey.

"... How long have you been keeping that in my car?" I asked.

"Long 'nuff," Cass smirked, pulling off the stopper with a pop. "Y'know, I never had t'deal with this kinda bullshit b'fore."

"What, consequences?" I asked. Cass shook her head.

"Relationships." She looked about ready to take a drink from the whiskey bottle, but paused; instead, she took out her flask and started refilling it. "Seriously, usually people understand th' difference t'ween bangin' cuz it's fun, an' sex that actually means somethin'."

"And how can you be so sure of that?" I asked, again unconvinced. Cass just shrugged.

"Cuz we ain't exactly livin' in a world've sunshine'n rainbows, here. I've found most people who're down t'fuck ain't lookin' fer anything... y'know, serious. Who knows if yer gonna get killed t'morrow... or even t'day, by something like raiders, or radscorpions, or deathclaws, or crazy robots. Y'just wanna... live in th' moment. Do somethin' that feels good, y'know? And nothin' feels better'n sex."

"You know, I used to know some junkies in New Reno who'd argue that point." I replied, only half joking. Cass just scoffed.

"Yeah? An' where are they now?" I thought about that for a minute.

"I don't know. Dead, probably."

"There y'go," Cass put the stopper back on the bottle of whiskey. "Can't expect junkies t'know what's good fer'm. Look, point is, I've never had t'deal with goofy bitches that can't separate dick'n emotion."

"I didn't think you had a dick," I said with a smirk. "Unless there's something you're not telling us?" Before I even finished, Cass socked me in the arm.

"Asshat. It's just a figure've speech."

"I still don't quite understand why you just haven't told her you're not looking for a relationship like she is." Cass slumped deeper into her seat. It was almost like she was trying to hide.

"S'not really my fault, y'know? I keep meanin' to tell her th' truth, an'... well... I jus' keep... gettin'... distracted."

"So, are you normally this horny, or is this just a new thing that's cropped up? Because I didn't notice this at the Mojave outpost."

"Well... it had been a while, so that might be part've it, I think..." She was quiet for a few minutes, and the only sound either of us heard was the low rumble of the engine.

"Do you want my advice? I mean, seriously, do you want my advice?" I asked her. She tipped her hat back, and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She closed her mouth with a snap, and shrugged.

"Let's hear it."

"The way I see it, you got two options here. On the one hand, you could just swallow your pride, and tell her the truth right away. Let her know that you're not looking for anything more than sex right now."

"An' th' other option?"

"You can keep doing what you have been the last few days. I'm sure it'll probably be fun for a while. But the longer you put off telling her the truth, the deeper her feelings for you are going to get, and the worse it'll be when the truth finally does come to light. Which it will."

I glanced over at Cass; she looked deep in thought, with her hat pulled down over her eyes. I didn't look long. Just long enough.

"And those're my only two options, y'think?" She said quietly. It was almost a whisper, but still loud enough for me to hear.

"The only two I can see. And like I keep telling you, I think it's better to get it out in the open. I think she'll respect you more for being honest with her in the long run." I kept my eyes focused on the road.

"But it'll break her heart," was Cass' only reply. Slowly, I started nodding.

"Yeah... there is that."

The sound of the engine rumbled through the car as I drove along. The silence between us was deafening.

"There's no way out've this without hurtin' her, is there?" Cass asked. I just sort of shook my head. That's when she started shouting. "Fuck! Is there a way I could **BE** any more've a bad guy in this situation?!"

"I could always try and find a puppy for you to kick."

Cass socked me in the arm, yet again, with a resounding smack.

* * *

N36° 8.75', W115° 3.18'.

Those were the coordinates we'd found on the map the other day. Following the path laid out on my Pip Boy's map had led us through the remains of several old, worn down residential neighborhoods. Almost every house was a single-story, and I'm sure they might have been different colors at some point... but after 200 years of wear and tear, the ones that were still standing just looked brown.

We were following the remains of Sahara Avenue, when we came across a bridge over what looked like a wide, dry river bed. I couldn't go any further this way, because the bridge sort of buckled inward on itself... but that didn't matter too much, because the Pip Boy told me we were at our destination.

"So, this th' place then?" Cass asked, getting out of my car after I rolled it to a stop. I nodded and got out myself.

"I guess so," I started looking around. "At least that's what the Pip Boy's telling me."

"Hmm..." Cass was looking around as well, and pulled out her shotgun, checking to make sure it was loaded. "Let's look 'round. Somethin' stinks."

At first, I thought she was speaking metaphorically, but then I started sniffing the air... and there was a distinct odor hanging around. It wasn't too strong, but it was strong enough that I couldn't mistake it for anything else: the smell of death. And as I peered into the collapsed bridge, I could see a large brahmin corpse... and several piles of ash.

"Well, at least we know we're in the right place. Another caravan burned," I said, thinking Cass was right next to me, but she was instead off to the side of the road.

"Hang on, someone made camp here..." Cass said as she peered over the edge of the bridge, close to where a large chunk of the road had collapsed. I walked towards the edge, to see for myself what she was talking about. There was a pile of dirt leading up to the collapsed portion, and on top of it I could see the outline of what was probably a fire pit the other day. More importantly, however, there were a couple of corpses. Not piles of ash, but actual bodies.

I looked over at Cass, and she looked at me; I could tell from that look we were both thinking the same thing. The two of us rushed down the collapsed bridge to get a closer look. With any luck, the corpses might have something on them that would tell us who was responsible for burning the caravans.

Even from a distance, I could tell a few things: they certainly weren't Legion, and they didn't look like raiders, or gang members like Khans or Vipers or Jackals. I could see at least three corpses. Two of them were wearing old world combat armor; the same sort of armor the mercenaries who were harassing Jacobstown wore. The last one was facedown, and wearing some sort of leather armor. I walked towards the one wearing the leather, while Cass went towards one of the men in combat armor.

"Fuck!" Cass yelled out, almost immediately. "I should've fuckin' known!"

"What?" I asked, grabbing the man who was facedown, trying to turn him over. "What is it? Have you found something?"

"Fucking Van Graff's, is what! These fuckers'r wearin' Van Graff family combat armor. I should've known, they always use energy weapons!" She grabbed one of the corpses by the collar, and pointed at a golden lion head emblem painted in a corner of the chestplate. "See? That's their logo. They put it on everything, th' smug fuckers!"

I racked my brain, trying to remember anything I could about the Van Graff's. At first, the only thing I could remember was the billboard at the 2nd caravan site, advertising the Van Graff's Silver Rush in Freeside. And then the bottlecap dropped: The Van Graff's were one of the families running things in New Reno, always constantly fighting the Wright family, the Bishop family, and the Mordinos for control of that little scrap of nowhere... More than that, though, they sold energy weapons all throughout NCR territory, just like the Gun Runners sold normal guns. It used to be their main base of operations was somewhere in Redding, but now, nobody knew where their headquarters was.

As I was thinking about all of this, I was trying to turn the other corpse over to get a look at him. There was a massive gash on the left side of his neck, and that side of him was caked in dried blood; whoever had shot him must have hit his cartoid artery. Painful way to die... and slow. I was so absorbed in remembering anything I could about the Van Graff's and trying to figure out how the man in front of me died, I almost didn't recognize him.

"Thing is, this don't make sense..." Cass said, giving one of the corpses wearing combat armor a kick. "Van Graff's ain't in th' caravan business. Not unless th' caravan's carrying weapons, an' shit... Why would they be burnin' caravans?"

"I think I might know," I said, looking at the man in leather armor... a man who looked like he couldn't be more than twenty. "They're working with someone else who is in the caravan business."

"How c'n ya tell?" Cass asked, walking towards me. I pointed at the corpse at my feet.

"I know this man. I met him almost two weeks ago, when I woke up in Goodsprings. His name is Ringo... and he works for the Crimson Caravan." Cass' eyes widened when I said Crimson Caravan - and I could almost see the pieces fall into place in her head.

"Goddamn moth'rfuckin' sonuvabitch... That tears it! S'all I need t'know. Crimson Caravan an' th' Van Graff's... They were behind burnin' all these caravans - and they've gotta answer for 'em."

Cass clenched her fists as she stood over the corpses around us. The look on her face was... it was kind of scary, to be honest. There was a fire burning in her eyes that spoke volumes. I recognized that look... it was the same fire I'd seen in my own eyes every time I looked in the mirror while I was hunting for Benny. It was the look of someone willing to tear apart the world with their bare hands to get vengeance.

"I'm gonna get some extra ammo, a few bottles of whiskey, an' then I'm gonna show those fuckers how a Cassidy settles accounts," Cass spat at one of the Van Graff soldiers, and started to storm off back to my car... but something about this whole thing was tugging at the back of my mind.

"Hang on a sec. Cass, hold up," I called after her. She turned back to look at me, and I knelt down over one of the Van Graff troops. His chestplate was flecked with dried blood, and I could see a gaping bullet hole in his chest under his armpit; one of the unarmored parts of his body. "Something about this doesn't feel right."

"I'll tell ya what ain't right - I haven't stuck my boot up Alice McLafferty's ass yet! Fucking... I should've known something was up when she bought m'caravan... Why would she want to buy a burned caravan? Fuck! It all makes sense now, goddamn! Why didn't I fuckin' see this b'fore now!?"

"Seriously, listen for a second. Don't you think this is all a little... I dunno, convenient?"

"Th' fuck d'ya mean?" She asked, sounding impatient.

"Well, think about it. All the other caravans we saw never had any bodies anywhere. Only piles of ash. This is the first time we've seen any intact corpses, and... I dunno, it just seems a little fishy, is all. Like they were put here." Cass' expression hardened. She advanced on me, shotgun in hand and with murder in her eyes. I got up, and stood my ground.

"So, what? Y'want me t'sit on m'hands an' do nothin?" She was starting to shout in my face, but I didn't back down. "After everything you did t'kill Benny? Everything I did t'help you get yer revenge - now that it's ME wantin' revenge, y'want me t'cool m'heels an' NOT kill the people responsible fer butcherin' my caravan? My friends? My kin? FUCK THAT!"

"That's not what I'm saying at all!" I shouted back at her. "Besides, killing Benny was... different." That was the wrong thing to say, I admit in hindsight. Cass looked shocked and outraged all at once.

"Oh, what! Cuz it was you wantin' blood, then? Fuck you!" She grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me down towards her face, practically snarling at me. "You ain't gonna stop me! I'm gonna make these fuckers pay fer what they've done!" I grabbed her hand and pulled her off my shirt, pushing her away from me.

"Will you shut up and listen to me?" I held onto both her shoulders, keeping her at arms length. She looked supremely pissed and she struggled a bit, but she still kept her mouth shut. "It's different because I knew exactly who I was hunting. I remembered his face, his checkered jacket, his nickel plated pistol, and every single detail about him from when he _shot me in the __**face**_." I loosened my grip, and she shrugged her shoulders violently, throwing off my hands. She was scowling... but still listening to me. "All we have here are a couple of bodies. It's entirely possible that the Crimson Caravan and the Van Graff's are behind this. I don't know - and that's the point. I'm all for getting revenge and killing the people responsible for killing your caravan - but I don't want to kill anyone on guesswork. Can't kill a man without knowing for sure you ought to. We just have to know for sure."

"Fine," Cass spat, shouldering her shotgun and making to walk back to my car. "Whatever. Fine. So. Have y'got a plan?" I followed her back up the broken bridge, falling in step just behind her.

"I'm gonna check out the only two leads," I said. "I'll sneak into the Crimson Caravan's camp and the Silver Rush tonight, and see if I can find any proof that they're the ones responsible. After that... I figure we can work out what to do from there."

"That's yer plan?" Cass sounded decidedly less pissed, but more annoyed. "Hate t'break this t'ya Shea, but yer track record with sneakin' ain't exactly stellar."

"Your confidence is overwhelming," I tried to deadpan as I opened the lock on my Corvega's trunk.

"I've got a point. Y'know that," Cass said, still scowling.

"Yes, you do. And I admit, trying to disguise myself doesn't really work because I'm not a master of disguise. I'm much better at sneaking..." I popped the trunk, and pulled out a large sack. "...when people can't see me."

"What th' fuck is that?" Cass pointed at the sack, sounding genuinely curious.

"This is a sack full of stealth boys," I said, opening up the pack so she could see inside. There were easily 20 or 30 stealth boys in the sack. Honestly, I hadn't bothered to count. "I got them from Doctor Henry just before we left Jacobstown yesterday. He had confiscated all the stealth boys from the Nightkin, and I offered to take some off his hands."

"Am I startin' t'rub off on ya?" Cass asked, taking out a stealth boy and turning it around in her hands.

"I didn't steal them," I said, rolling my eyes. "He gave them to me when I asked, because I helped him with his research. Besides, I've snuck into places before, so it's not like the stealth boys are the only card I'm playing here. So what do you say? Will you let me find some evidence before we both go off half-cocked?"

Cass breathed in sharply through her nose, and exhaled through her nose just as heavily.

"All right. You poke around th' Van Graff's and Alice. Fine. But I see either one go inta th' others camp? I'm gonna start shootin', no matter what y'find."

* * *

It was about a half an hour after noon when we got back to the 38. Cass didn't say anything to me on the ride back, or on the ride up the elevator up to the suite. She just looked... pissed off. The silence was excruciating, and the look of hatred in her eyes was all too familiar.

Of course, when the elevator pinged and the doors slid open, I almost wanted the uncomfortable silence back.

"That is a fucking lie, you stuck up, four-eyed, pompous son of a bitch!"

"So, you've resorted to name calling now? That's mature - though I suppose I should've expected as much from a mindless Brotherhood lapdog!"

It sounded like Arcade and Veronica, and they were both shouting at each other at the top of their lungs. I couldn't tell where they were in the suite exactly; the sounds echoed and bounced over every wall and just got louder. Leaning against the wall across from the elevator was Boone, with the same expression on his face as always and his arms folded across his chest. He looked up when the elevator doors opened.

"About time you guys showed up," he seemed to growl. "I was afraid those two were going to start tearing up the place."

"Boone, what the fuck is going on? Why are those two going at it?" I asked, right before I heard a thundering crash from the kitchen. Without thinking I drew Roscoe, pointing it at the entrance to the kitchen, and heard Cass ready her shotgun.

"Yeah... I might have let slip that Veronica's part of the Brotherhood of Steel, and..." Boone grimaced, and almost looked sheepish. Almost. "Arcade kind of went off after that."

I rushed into the kitchen - and was immediately met with chaos. The dining table was upended and pushed off to the side of the wall. The floor was lined with shards of broken glass bottles and cracked plates. Every chair was either on its side or in splinters. Veronica was standing at one end of the room in a combat ready stance, with her power fist exposed and venting gas. Arcade was standing at the other end, and the only thing that was immediately apparent was the thin trail of blood dripping down from his temple.

"What the FUCK is going on in here?!" I shouted. Both of them sort of stopped and stared at me.

"I'll tell you what's going on," Arcade said, wiping away the blood from his forehead. "You should've told me we were travelling with a lackey for a band of murderous thugs!"

"Oh, like the seditious anarchists in the Followers have any sort of moral high ground!"

"Higher ground than your pseudo-knightly nonsense and warmongering!" The two of them started advancing on each other. I needed to end this quickly. So I aimed Roscoe above me and fired off a round into the ceiling.

That shut the two of them up.

"Alright, both of you! Shut up and sit the fuck down!" I holstered Roscoe with a bit more force than needed, but I thought it provided decent punctuation. "You are going to stop this stupid fighting RIGHT NOW - and tell me what the fuck this is about!" I pointed at the two of them, emphasizing each word I shouted. They both backed up slightly, but only Veronica looked around to find a chair that wasn't broken.

"She started it..." Arcade wiped his forehead again. That tore it.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO STARTED IT!" I yelled in Arcade's face. I hated that excuse, and it really got to me. He backed up all the way to the fridge, and genuinely looked scared. I sighed, backed off a bit, and rubbed my throbbing temple. "I'm ending it. Right here, right now. The both of you are going to sit down, and tell me - in a calm, civilized fashion - what the fuck is going on and why you two have made a mess of the kitchen. And if you don't, then I swear to FUCK that I'm going to beat the ever loving piss out of the both of you. Got it?"

Thankfully, the two of them nodded. Arcade reached down by his feet, and righted a chair. I reached behind me and pulled the edge of the table up to get it back on its feet; a few glasses shifted and cracked as it moved. When I finally got it back upright, I sat on the edge of the table, and crossed my arms over my chest, scowling at the two of them.

"Ok. Now. What's going on?" I asked. Arcade was the first to speak up - after he'd reached into the freezer to pull out a bag of ice to hold against his head.

"Did you know she was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel?" I nooded.

"Yeah. I've known almost since she started working with us."

"So why didn't you tell me we were working with a mass murderer?"

Fucking hell.

"I am not a mass murderer you-" Veronica started to yell at him again, but I did my best to cut her off.

"NO! Veronica - shut up! Arcade - no more insults, or I will beat you with the chair you're sitting on! You want me to be an umpire, I will be a fucking umpire, and I will not stand for this shit!" I rubbed my temple again. "I didn't tell you she was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, because I was hoping Veronica would take some responsibility and tell you herself. But I take it Boone was the one who let it slip?"

Veronica nodded. "Yeah, he kind of... mentioned it. I guess he thought it was common knowledge or something."

"Ok. Arcade," I turned back to the blonde bespectacled scientist; he took the ice back off his head, and grimaced at what was, presumably, a large bloodstain. "What is your big problem with the Brotherhood? And keep in mind - you devolve into just insults, I will make good on that threat. Go."

"I don't know what you know about the Brotherhood of Steel," Arcade said, putting the ice pack back on his head. "But I've seen enough of what they do. They hoard technology, they murder people who use advanced tech and take it for themselves, and they fight anyone who tries to oppose them."

I turned to Veronica., and gestured for her to give a counter point. She just sat there for a few seconds, fuming.

"Yeah... all that is true," Veronica said finally. "But that's not the whole story. That's like judging all wastelanders by your experience with raiders. The Brotherhood protects people."

"No they don't!" Arcade sounded astonished. "The Followers help people."

"I didn't say help, I said protect. We keep dangerous knowledge out of the hands of people who'd abuse it. If the Followers had their way, they'd let anyone and everyone get their hands on plans to build a nuke!" Veronica wasn't yelling, but she was rather forceful.

"And if the Brotherhood had their way, they'd keep everyone who wasn't them in the stone age, while they hide underground on piles of stolen technology!"

"Look, even I will admit the Brotherhood has it's fair share of problems. But they're still my family. And I won't stand for you calling my family murderers!"

"Remind me again," Arcade narrowed his eyes. "How many people did the Brotherhood kill when they wiped out the NCR's gold supply?"

"Ok, you know what?" I finally said. "I think I know what the problem is. You're both being children."

"What?" the two of them said in unison.

"You heard me. Now, I want you two to listen to me, and listen good. You both have differences. You're both from organizations that have different views on how things should be in the wasteland. But if you guys want to work with me, then you'll have to learn to work with each other. Do you two understand that?"

The two of them nodded. I looked off to the side, and saw Cass and Boone standing close to the door. What I said next, I directed to Cass as much as I directed to Veronica and Arcade.

"This is why you don't keep secrets from the people you work with. Eventually, the secrets come out, and it'll just end up in a big fight, and a lot of people hurt. Do you all understand that? I don't want any more fighting out of either of you two. Think you can handle that?" Arcade and Veronica both nodded slowly, and I got up off the table.

"Good. Now, clean this mess up. We got work to do."


	37. Chapter 36: Gathering Intel

Chapter 36: Gathering Intel

* * *

_That was Marty Robbins, telling you all about the man with the "Big Iron" on his hip. You're listening to Radio New Vegas, keeping you company out there in the Mojave wasteland. It's the top of the hour, so it's time to bring you some news. Rumors continue to persist about the package courier who survived being shot in the head near Goodsprings. No one is sure of his real identity or where he comes from, but Freeside and Westside locals have started referring to him as "The Indestructible Courier" or simply "The Courier." Our sources also indicate that he has somehow drawn the ire of Caesar - but so far, every one of Caesar's attempts to kill The Courier have failed. Maybe he really is indestructible? Who knows. The preceding segment was sponsored by the Silver Rush: feel the rush of a warm laser in your hands._

* * *

I don't think I've ever been happier to get away from my friends for a few hours.

On the surface, Veronica and Arcade had stopped fighting and shouting and yelling at each other. But now they were having a stupid silent fight, which was just as annoying. Seriously, watching the two of them clean up their mess in the kitchen - and I felt like I had to watch them, just to make sure neither of them started anything - was the most passive-aggressive thing I've ever witnessed.

Once they were finished, I realized that keeping the two of them in close proximity (at least for the time being) was probably a bad idea. So, to try and keep our living area from getting any more destroyed, I gave them both a couple hundred caps, and sent them each out on some errands - in opposite directions. With luck, that would keep them occupied for another few hours.

Cass wasn't fighting with anyone like those two, but was still fuming and was utterly pissed off. Granted, over time she went from "pissed off" to merely "pissed" - she spent most of that afternoon in the common room next to the kitchen with half a dozen bottles of whiskey, alternating between pool and darts. And when she wasn't doing that, she was on the balcony, looking out over Vegas and chucking her empty bottles off the side as hard as she could.

Boone was the only one who didn't have any problems with anyone or anything. Sadly, I didn't have too long to appreciate that small nugget of comfort, because he left the 38 with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, saying that he was going to head out for some more ammo and "target practice," and that he wouldn't be back until late.

Still, it's not like my schedule was empty either. So, as soon as the sun set, I left the 38 as well, got in my car, and drove out into Freeside on my little recon mission for Cass, with ED-E following close behind. I made my way towards the Silver Rush first. I figured that if it was as heavily defended as I suspected, then it would be best to do that first; get it out of the way, and leave the easier one for last. No matter what though, I was going to scout out both places for evidence and be done before the sun came up.

On the way, I started remembering the first time I'd snuck into a heavily fortified installation. I had to sneak into an NCR base just outside Calexico, south of the toxic Salton Sea. I was given a job to transport a package from San Felipe down in Baja up to Dayglow. I never bothered to ask what was in the package, and on the way it got confiscated at an NCR checkpoint by an officer who felt that I hadn't paid enough for his "stop toll." I was tight for cash back then, and really needed to make the delivery, so I figured out where it had been taken, waited until dark, snuck into the base quick and quiet as you please, and stole it back. When I finally got back to my car, I decided to stay off the roads until I got deeper into NCR territory - past all the quartermasters and their "stop tolls" stealing money off people just trying to get by.

I've had to sneak into a couple other places - some even more heavily fortified - since then, and overtime I've amassed a rather eclectic assortment of tools to help me when it comes to sneaking around. The stealth boys would just make things much, much easier. Honestly, if I'd had the stealth boys when I'd had to go to the Fort, I wouldn't have bothered trying to venture there in disguise. Oh well.

I parked my car just outside the run down (and mostly collapsed) old courthouse, a few blocks away from the Silver Rush. There was an abandoned car park much closer, but even I could tell it was being used by squatters as a makeshift flop-house. Ironic as it was, the car park was probably not the best place to leave my car.

"Hey, ED-E? I'm gonna have to go on my own for a while. Do a little sneaking around. Can you watch my car while I'm gone?" I asked the eyebot as I exited my car. He hovered close to my head, and let out a trio of sad beeps. I sighed. "Look, I know, you're worried about me, I get it, and I appreciate it. But I need to move quiet, and I can't do that with you bobbing along in the air behind me." ED-E made a weird, indignant mechanical squawk. "This isn't like the Fort, ED-E. They're not going to be able to see me this time." I lifted up a stealth boy, and ED-E backed off, hovered over my car, and sounded off a single resigned beep.

I checked behind me after heading down the side street about 20 feet, just to make sure ED-E was staying put. Satisfied he wasn't going to come after me, I headed down towards the Silver Rush in earnest. There were a few scattered lights here and there, but only Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street had working streetlights... and that meant my short walk was bathed in a pale green glow, thanks to my bionic eyes.

First order of business was to scope out the front door - not because I had any illusions that I'd be able to get in that way, but because it was always a good place to start, and it would give me an idea of what I'd be up against. So, I stuck to the shadows, headed for a boarded up building across the street, and found a side entrance in an alley. I took the crowbar I'd brought with me off the sling on my back, and after a few seconds work, the door was open. Inside, the building was impossibly filthy, and full of cobwebs. And, lucky me, I could see every single one of them.

The inside was deathly quiet, but that wasn't really a surprise. The only noise came from the creaking under my feet when I went up the stairs. Thankfully, it didn't collapse under my weight on the way up, and before I knew it, I was kneeling next to one of the second story windows. The window was entirely too filthy to see out of, but with a bit of elbow grease, I was able to force it up just enough for me to look out. I reached behind me, and pulled a pair of binoculars off my belt to get a closer look.

The entrance to the Silver Rush was a pair of identical metal double doors underneath a large lamp, spilling light everywhere. The doors were flanked on either side by a duo of big burly men wearing combat armor. I switched my eyes from nightvision back to normal sight, and could see that it was that same matte-black armor that Cass and I had found at the last caravan site - and both of them had the same golden lion emblem in the corner of the chest armor.

What they had in their hands was what really worried me though. Both of them were carrying plasma rifles. And these weren't broken down, rusted pieces of crap like I'd found before: these rifles looked almost new and scarily well maintained. Even from this distance, I could see the rifles had been fitted with magnetic accelerators and hi-energy ionizers. That's some pretty heavy armament they were packing, and that was just the guards at the front. Not exactly the most comforting of views.

Alright. Front door is a wash. I shifted around, trying to get a better view of other parts of the building. The building had windows, but none of them looked like they opened. Above the door was the Silver Rush sign, but it was tilted at an odd angle, since part of the 2nd floor was collapsed. It was an old neon sign, which probably meant the Silver Rush was a casino before the war, and that meant... I looked higher, above the main part of the building, and I could see the framework of what used to be a high rise. Only about three of the high rise floors coming out of the building were still standing; everything above it was twisted and collapsed.

If I could get up there, it was a good bet there was a way I could get inside.

A few minutes later, I was in the alley behind the Silver Rush, looking up at the wall I had to climb. It was an old brick building, very sturdy... but not smooth at all. And in this situation, that was a very good thing. There were enough bricks that weren't quite even with the wall, and there were enough of them that I could easily use them as hand and foot holds.

The climb was pretty slow... but I made it up. Eventually. I had to climb through the remains of a window frame before I could see the interior of the building. The floors to the high rise part of the Silver Rush were in even worse shape than I thought. The entire center part of the building looked collapsed in on itself. But there weren't any guards up here.

I started poking around, carefully working my way past the piles of rubble, until I found something: it looked like a trapdoor. Based on the height of the surroundings, I'd say I was right above the 2nd floor. Time to get serious. I pulled out the stealth boy, and slipped it on my right arm.

If you've never used a stealth boy, it's a rather... interesting experience. I unlocked the control pad, and punched in the activation sequence and... I felt all the hairs on my body stand on end, and a belch of ozone forced its way into my nose. It felt like cool water was being poured over me, and after it passed, my body, my clothes, and even my Pip Boy became see through. Up close, it didn't make me completely invisible; it was rather like looking through very still, very clear water.

The charge on the stealth boy would last about an hour, so I was now officially on the clock. I tried to crack open the trapdoor... and missed. The fact that my arms were now mostly transparent was really fucking with my sense of perspective. Eventually though, I got my bearings, opened it up, and peered inside - it led into what looked like an overhead crawlspace, the kind of space between floors where buildings kept all the lighting and HVAC ducts. It would be a squeeze, but it was wide and high enough for me to crawl into. It's not like I was trying to crawl through the air vents themselves.

I crawled through the tight space, occasionally lifting up ceiling tiles or peering through cracks and holes to check where I was... and then I started to hear voices. I moved towards the sound as quickly and quietly as I could. A large shaft of light was bleeding through the dusty air ahead of me, and I situated myself almost on top of it. It was large enough that I could see down into the entire room: it was a corner office.

In the center of the room was a large metal desk. On top of the desk was a stack of papers with a plasma pistol sitting on top like a paperweight, and a RobCo terminal off to the side. Behind the desk was a black woman with dark hair so short it looked buzzed, sitting in a large leather chair like she owned the place. She wore what I'm sure she was trying to have pass for a business suit, but really it was a blue suit jacket that looked tailored specifically to show off her figure, and a matching blue miniskirt that was uncomfortably revealing - especially considering how her legs were crossed. I'm sure that from ground level, the neckline of the outfit was designed to show off her rather generous bust line, but from my view directly above her, the amount of revealed décolletage was absolutely ridiculous.

Sitting across from the woman was a greasy looking pale man in a grey suit, with a head of thinning dark hair. He looked simultaneously nervous and like he was attempting to be intimidating at the same time... but all it did was make him look more out of place. Behind him and standing at the door in a suit of that matte black combat armor and carrying a modified laser rifle was an incredibly large black man. His face looked frozen in a permanent sneer, and his arms were so huge, I could've easily fit a skull into each bicep. Each wall looked like it had been lined and reinforced with metal.

"Mr. Soren," the woman behind the desk steepled her fingers in front of her face as she spoke. "Please get to the point. The second half of your payment is late, and I want to know why." The man sitting across from her - Mr. Soren, apparently - coughed, and adjusted his tie.

"Ms. Van Graff, my associates and I have decided that we wish to renegotiate the terms of our deal," he said. I could tell he was trying to be forceful.

"Might I ask for what reason?" the Van Graff woman asked. "The shipment was delivered. The weapons were tested before leaving this facility."

"Regardless," Soren coughed again. "We feel that the quality of the weapons is below expectations, and hoped to adjust the price accordingly."

"Ah," the Van Graff woman got up from her chair, and started slowly walking around her desk. "I think I understand what the issue here is. Excuse me for a moment, would you?" She stopped in front of the hulking man in combat armor. "Jean-Baptiste, would you bring out the volunteer?" He gave a single, guttural grunting laugh, and turned on his heels out the door. The Van Graff woman then turned around, and started leaning against the spot where Jean-Baptiste had been standing. "This is a lesson, Mr. Soren. A lesson in faith."

Before I could work out what was happening, Jean-Baptiste came back into the room - but only after shoving another man in through the doorway. What was immediately apparent was his lack of clothes - he was only wearing a pair of cotton boxers. The second thing that was apparent was how his hands were bound in front of him. He stumbled a bit when Jean-Baptiste pushed him, and then was forced to kneel on the floor in front of one of the metal walls by a massive hand the size of a pie plate. He looked positively terrified.

"W-what is this, Ms. Van Graff?" Soren wasn't even trying to hide his nervousness now. "I don't understand. Who is this man? What does he have to do with our deal?"

"Everything," she said with a voice like venom laced chocolate. She knelt down and clutched the mans chin between her thumb and forefinger. "Up until recently, this man was an employee of mine. He's quite handsome don't you think?" She turned to Soren, maneuvering the bound mans head towards the businessman so he could get a better view.

"I... er..." I'm not sure how he wanted to respond. I wouldn't know either if I was in his shoes, to be brutally honest. The Van Graff woman let go of the man's face and got up.

"I know I did. We became... close. I warned him that I was a very jealous woman. He said he understood. Apparently - he didn't." She leaned back against the wall. "Last week, I chanced upon him in Gomorrah, being serviced by one of their two-cap whores. I was not pleased. I tell you all this because I want you to know that this man means a great deal to me." She turned to Jean-Baptiste, who was now standing right in front of the bound man. "Do it."

Without hesitation, the massive man carrying the laser rifle leveled the barrel at the head of the bound man and fired off a burst of energy into his face at point blank range. There was an actinic taste of metal in the air, and a blindingly bright flash. For a moment, there was a giant molten hole in the middle of his face - and then he had no face at all. His body glowed red hot, then white hot, and then disintegrated into a pile of smoldering ash on the floor.

Mr. Soren was paralyzed with fear. He was recoiling back in his chair, a look of abject terror on his face. His hands were gripping the arms of the chair so tightly, his knuckles were turning white. The Van Graff woman stepped forward, and grabbed onto the man's head, forcing him to look at her right in the eyes.

"Never break faith with the Van Graff's, Mr. Soren. I expect you'll have the rest of our payment ready tomorrow morning." She let go of his head, and he started nodding frantically. She smiled. "Good. Get out." He didn't need any more encouragement; like a shot, he was out the door, his footsteps echoing down the hall. As soon as he left, Jean-Baptiste started laughing deep and heartily.

"Hahahaa! Ahh, I think he pissed himself before he left. That was pretty good, making up that part about sleeping with Jacob," The Van Graff woman gave the giant man in combat armor no response - if anything, her lack of a response was answer enough. He looked a little worried. "Uh... you _did_ make that part up... right, Glory?" She continued to stay quiet, but stared at him with a look of exasperation. Jean-Baptiste countered it with his own look of frustration. "Damnit girl! What has mama always said about tipping the help? I thought this was about him stealing money from us!"

"He was stealing money," she said, walking out the door. Jean-Baptiste followed her, and their voices started to fade as they left the room - but not before I heard her say "Though he could have kept it for all I cared. God knows he earned it..."

As soon as I was sure they'd left, and weren't coming back - at least for a while - I moved. I removed one of the ceiling tiles and very carefully lowered myself down into the room. I made sure to replace the tile, and then I set to work. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that the Van Graffs here in Vegas were just as ruthless as their reputation would have you believe, but I needed to look around - and, if Cass was right, find some sort of evidence that would link them to the burned caravans.

I booted up the terminal on the desk first, and ran the debug command. Lines of code flashed in front of me, and it took me a couple of minutes to parse through the massive amount of seemingly random characters, and sort out the password through the noise. Once I'd hacked into the terminal, it took me several more minutes to look through the files and realize there wasn't really anything there... just before I logged out, however, I noticed a command that seemed out of place: it was a command to disengage a lock on a nearby safe.

I looked around, and realized that under the desk, built into the floor, was a safe similar to the one Jeannie-May had in the Novac motel office. I hit the command, and the safe underneath me popped open with a hiss. I logged off the computer, and opened up the safe, peering inside: several stacks of NCR bills, some old-world money, a couple stacks of caps, a few poker chips, several dozen legion coins... and several folded up pieces of paper. I took one of the papers, unfolded it, and read: it was a letter.

_Dear Ms. Gloria Van Graff_

_It has come to my attention that Cassidy Caravans have suffered a number of setbacks recently. I can only hope that these latest unfortunate events drive that young booze-hound of an owner to finally sell me her remaining assets. _

_As per our agreement, I have bent my not inconsiderable efforts toward weakening your competitors, the Gun Runners. You can expect a mysterious and sudden surge in sales in the near future._

The bottom of the letter didn't have a name, but was signed: "AM."

I folded the paper back up, closed the safe, and felt around my chest, trying to find the invisible pocket inside my jacket where I could keep this. As soon as the letter was put in the pocket, it disappeared and became transparent.

Alright, time to get out of here. I didn't think I could get out the same way I came in - not without causing an awful ruckus, at least. So I did the only thing I could think of, and leave the office into the adjacent hallway. And none too soon - Gloria and Jean-Baptiste were turning the corner, heading back towards the office. I pressed myself against a wall and stayed deathly still - I didn't even dare breathe.

"I just don't like it, is all," Jean-Baptiste said. "I mean, we're tricking the Legion, and setting them up for an NCR ambush. Helping out the NCR feels like... I dunno, like we're betraying mama's trust."

"Jean-Baptiste, what has mother always said about you?" Gloria asked - but kept talking before getting a response. "She's always said that you're not going to go far in life..."

Jean-Baptiste sighed. "But you're gonna make a lot of people come up short. Yeah, I know."

"Leave the thinking to me, brother. We're not helping the NCR - we're helping ourselves. If Caesar takes over the Mojave, he won't suffer the likes of us. He doesn't have friends or allies - he has servants. NCR, on the other hand, is an enemy we can deal with, bunch of corrupt, bullying fools who think they can tell everyone how to live their lives that they are... but easily dealt with, regardless."

"I still don't think mama'll like it," he said, shaking his head.

"She'll come around when she hears about the profit we'll make," Gloria said as the two of them entered her office again. "If she's smart - and she is - she'll turn this to her own advantage and make a bundle off our new... 'connections' in the NCR military..." She shut the door behind her, and I finally gave myself time to breathe.

I had no idea how long the stealth boy was going to last. I needed to get out of here now. Quickly, I made my way down the hall where Gloria and Jean-Baptiste had came from, checking each door quickly as I passed. Most of the rooms were either storage rooms, or bunks for the Van Graff guards. I turned a corner, and it lead me down a staircase, into the main hall of the building.

The downstairs was incredibly open and wide... or it would have been, if hadn't been partitioned off by sheets of metal and chain link fences. All around, I could see weapons and ammunition mounted on the walls, lying on shelves... and guards in that same matte black combat armor patrolling the area. The chain links made the downstairs a maze, and with all the guards... it would be a veritable killzone if I suddenly became visible in the middle of it.

Right, back upstairs.

Back through the same hallway... except this time, I didn't see any decent way out. Before I knew it, I smelled ozone. A crackle of an electric shock crawled over my skin, and my limbs suddenly became visible again. This was exactly the kind of situation in which I didn't want to be.

I hugged the walls, moving as silently as I could, but every footfall sounded in my ears like cinderblocks being tossed off a building; it felt like my breathing was as loud as the wind in a sandstorm. I tried to shake it off - it was just nerves making my mind exaggerate every little sound.

I tried to think - which of the rooms that I'd looked into had windows? Gloria's corner office, sure, but it's not like I could use that. None of the storage rooms faced the outside, and all the bunks had thick metal plates over where all the windows should've been. At the far end of the hall, there was one room I hadn't checked, so I made a beeline for it. I cracked open the door. Inside was a dimly lit, dingy bathroom - and a window on the far end. It was small, and above one of the toilet stalls, but-

There were heavy footfalls on the floor behind me, and the sound of a door creaking open. I rushed into the room, and into the nearest stall. I closed the door, and stood up on the toilet, making sure I'd be hidden from view - and held my breath. The door slid open slowly, and I saw the shadow of someone standing in the doorframe. I pulled out Roscoe as silently as I could, keeping it trained on the door. The silhouette on the floor didn't move.

"Hurm," I heard the voice say. "Guess it's nothing..." The door slid closed with a squeak, and the room was wrapped in darkness again. I let myself sigh.

Right, time to leave. It was a bit of a squeeze, but the window was, thankfully, wide enough for me to get out. Of course, halfway though pushing my upper torso out the window, I remembered - I'm on the second floor. Probably a bad idea to exit head first. It took a little tricky maneuvering (including some rather awkward and uncomfortable compression of some rather tender areas) but I was able to twist myself around until I was hanging down by the outer window ledge.

A few minutes - and a bruised shin and shoulder - later, I was back on the ground, keeping to the shadows and heading back to my car.

I really have to learn how to fall correctly.

* * *

The Crimson Caravan's camp was a little less than half a mile from the north entrance to Freeside, just outside the wall. It was a relatively small compound, surrounded on four sides by about 12 foot high concrete walls, with two wide doors - wide enough for something like my Corvega to fit through at least twice - at the east and west ends of the camp. Above each of the doors was a sign that said in red lettering "Crimson Caravan Co."

There were a few broken buildings around the edges of the camp, and I used them as cover while I scouted out the exterior of the compound. The Crimson Caravan wasn't like the Silver Rush at all - this wasn't the headquarters of a paramilitary organization, it was just a civilian trading company.

There were only two guards that I could see, and neither of them looked very attentive. They were both wearing leather armor, and each had an assault rifle slung across their chest. The one guarding the east entrance was busy smoking, and the one guarding the west entrance - the one facing the Freeside wall - looked like he was asleep. Slipping in past them under cover of darkness would've been incredibly easy at the worst of times; with the stealth boy, it was like I didn't even have to pay attention.

Of course, this time, I made sure to bring extra stealth boys. Just in case.

The inside of the compound consisted of a series of small, one-story buildings. I recognized their design - it was the same sort of old world barracks design that the NCR used when they wanted to set up a forward base with structures a bit more solid than tents, but not quite as permanent as something made out of concrete. Aside from the half dozen buildings, I saw a brahmin pen at one end of the compound, and a series of small huts that looked like they could've been merchant stalls, as well as some park benches scattered around in seemingly random places.

Even though I didn't feel like I had to even be all that quiet - this was a civilian outpost, which meant that aside from the two guards, everyone was asleep - I still tried to move as quietly as I could, checking the exteriors of the buildings for any indication of what they were. Most of them were exactly what they looked like, with signs like "Men's Sleeping Quarters" and "Women's Sleeping Quarters," but at the far north end of the compound was a building with a sign that said "Crimson Caravan Main Office."

I tried one of the doors - not the front, but one of the doors on the side - but it was locked. Not all that surprising. If I'm honest, things were going just a bit too smoothly. I looked around over my shoulders, and made sure that nobody was nearby. When I was satisfied nobody was going to see me, I felt around on my arm, and searched for the button on the side of the stealth boy. There was an electric tingle, and I became visible, which let me look for the lockpicking kit I'd brought with me. What can I say, I didn't really feel comfortable enough with being invisible to try picking a lock without seeing what I was doing.

A minute later, the door slid open with a click.

Inside the building was a short hallway, and two empty doorframes leading into a pair of offices. In front of each office was a small metal desk. The air was still and silent, and the few lights from outside spilled in through the windows and a skylight in the center of the hallway, illuminating every speck of dust floating in the air.

I went into the closest office first. Next to the door was a plaque, that read "Don Hostetler: Human Resources Manager." On the desk was a terminal, and a black and white photograph of a very grim-faced man in a suit, standing next to a woman in a dress, and a teenage girl. I hacked into the terminal easily enough. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything of interest on his computer, except for a series of emails that heavily implied he was having an affair with his secretary.

Content there wasn't anything that I was looking for, I logged off, and started checking the drawers for something. The bottom drawer had reams of paper - it looked like files on every employee of the Crimson Caravan currently working in the Mojave.

Out of a sense of morbid curiosity, I checked to see if I could find... there it was. Lowenthal, Ringo. According to the file, as soon as he returned from Goodsprings, he tried to apply for a position as boss of a caravan trip heading to New Canaan... but the last thing in his file indicated he was sent on a different assignment, but didn't say what it was. It also didn't give any indication that he was dead; he was still scheduled to leave at the middle of next month.

The top drawer, on the other hand, had no files. I saw a 9 millimeter Beretta, a box of ammo, and about half dozen empty jet inhalers.

Right. Plenty of things incriminating this asshole, but not the kind of incriminating that I was hoping for. Time to move on to the next one.

The sign next to the other door said "Alice McLafferty: Vegas Branch Manager." This office was much bigger than the other one - the desk was larger and it looked like it was made out of wood, rather than metal, the wing-back chair behind the desk was leather, and button backed, that sort of thing. There were pictures and certificates lining the wall as well. Almost every picture included the same short-haired, platinum blonde woman wearing a business suit - I assumed that this must have been McLafferty. One of the pictures even showed her shaking hands with Aaron Kimball, the NCR's president. Whoever this Alice really was, she was obviously pretty important back west.

First thing I headed for was the terminal on the desk. The encryption was a little harder than the other terminal, but it was still simple enough to break in. Most of the information was boring spreadsheet after boring spreadsheet, but there was one thing that caught my eye: an email.

_**Alice-**_

_**Your push for a new tariff on Gun Runner weapons didn't make it past the Senate. They've got too much pull in California. We're going to have to find some other way to get the upper hand in the weapons market.**_

_**-Jason Tagg, Modoc Branch Manager**_

The letter to Gloria mentioned something about the Gun Runners as well.. so I downloaded the email to my Pip Boy, along with everything else on the hard drive I thought might be important.

There was one other thing I wanted to check before I left: there was a safe on the floor, next to the desk and hidden out of sight. The lock was a combination turn lock... so I pressed my ear to the safe, and very slowly and very carefully started turning the dial.

Turning... turning... click. Now, the other way.

Turning... turning... turning... still turning... click. Good. Back again.

Half a turn, and the click, which was followed by a dull, low pop as the safe door released.

Like Gloria's safe in the Silver Rush, this safe had plenty of different and varying currencies. But this one had, alongside several pieces of paper, a holotape. I grabbed the papers, and flipped through them - they were all various agreements, signed by both Alice McLafferty and Gloria Van Graff, to undercut or eliminate rival caravan companies in the region. Cassidy Caravans, Griffin Wares, Durable Dunn Caravans, 3-Some Caravan Company, Happy Trails Caravans... even Gun Runner caravans were targeted. I looked at the agreement they'd signed regarding Cassidy Caravans again; it looked like Gloria Van Graff agreed to use mercenaries against the caravan to drive down the company's value, allowing McLafferty to buy the remaining assets at "a bargain price."

I grabbed all the agreements and put them in my jacket, and decided to see what was on the holotape. I checked the bottom of my Pip Boy and pulled out a small cable with a connection on the end, and plugged it into the tape. The screen on my Pip Boy flashed, cycling through lines of code until the contents of the holotape showed up.

At first, I didn't know what I was looking at... but then I saw an electronic design credit: this belonged to the Gun Runners. I kept looking through it, and I could see that these were weapon schematics, stolen from the Gun Runner factory just a couple miles south.

I disconnected my Pip Boy, and grabbed the holotape along with the agreements.

Part of me was sorely tempted to grab some of the cash, but... I'd already been here too long. I closed and locked the safe, back just the way it was, and punched the activation code on my stealth boy.

Time to leave, and get back to the 38. There was a lot I grabbed tonight that I had to stew over... and that included working on an apology for doubting Cass' instinct. Still... at least I had plenty of evidence, and plenty of proof.


End file.
